SERMON ON THE MOUNT
FALSE PROPHETS IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
DR. JIM DIXON
JANUARY 27, 2002
MATTHEW 7:15
On June 12th, 452 AD, the armies of Atilla the Hun were approaching the city of Rome. It was not a good time to be a Roman citizen. For 200 years, the Roman Empire had been in decline, and its once vast armies, its once proud legions, had atrophied and the city of Rome was now defended by little more than a police force. The Roman economy was in ruin. Roman society was in chaos, and now the armies of Atilla the Hun were approaching the eternal city—300,000 men on horseback. In the zenith of Rome’s power, they would’ve had a difficult time defending the city. So it was that on June 12th, 452, Pope Leo I got into his carriage. He rode out of the city of Rome to meet Attila the Hun as Attila’s armies were advancing towards the city.
Pope Leo I brought with him wealth and an offering to appease Attila the Hun. But he knew that he could not buy the salvation of Rome. Just a few months earlier, the city of Milan had offered tribute to Atilla the Hun and he had rewarded them by sending his vast armies through the city of Milan in a murderous rage. Attila the Hun had an insatiable thirst for blood and for conquest. But history tells us that on that day, June 12th, 452, Pope Leo I met Attila the Hun outside the city of Rome, and they talked for 15 minutes. And when they were done, incredibly, Attila the Hun turned his armies around and they rode away from the city of Rome, never to return.
Why was that? I mean, what could Pope Leo I have said to Attila the Hun? He told him that the city of Rome was devastated by plague. He said, if you bring your armies into the city, you’ll lose more men to disease than you will to the sword. Attila the Hun believed the Pope, and he believed him because Pope Leo I was known throughout the world as a trustworthy man, an honest man. Even today, Christian historians view Pope Leo I as one of the greatest popes of Christian history. And it was Pope Leo I who convened the council of Chalcedon and help shape the Christology of the early church. He loved Jesus Christ. He was a man of his word. He spoke the truth to his friends and even to his enemies. He spoke the truth that day. Plague was ravishing the city of Rome. He was a trustworthy man. I think today we realize how rare people like Pope Leo I are, how rare it is to find trustworthy people—people who can be trusted by their friends or even their enemies. How rare that is.
And today, even as we sit here, there are thousands of workers who worked at Enron and who have lost their 401(k)s and their life savings are gone and they wonder who they can trust. And they are angry. And there are hundreds of thousands of investors who are angry. Enron was the seventh largest corporation in the world, and today it is bankrupt and billions of dollars in debt. Joe Lieberman said just this past week that Enron was a house of cards built by greed and deceit. And we live in a world like this, a world that is not always trustworthy, a world where there is greed and there is deceit in virtually every arena of life.
Would that I could stand up here this morning and say to you that there’s no greed and deceit in the world of religion. But we all know there is. There’s greed and deceit even in the world of religion. In the world of religion, not all are trustworthy, not all are true. That is why in our passage of scripture for today the Lord Jesus Christ warns us regarding false prophets and false teachers. And that is why when we go through the pages of the Bible, again and again we see warnings regarding false prophets and false teachers. And Jesus says to us, you will know them by their fruits. This morning I want us to discuss the two primary fruits of false teaching and false prophecy.
The first fruit is the fruit of false doctrine. You see, false teachers dish out false doctrine. False prophets are pedaling false doctrine. The Bible tells us that as we approach the consummation of the age and the end of the world, the church of Jesus Christ will be riddled with false doctrine. The Bible says that the day is coming when people will no longer endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers of their own liking, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and they will wander into myth.
The Bible says that in the last days, people will give heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. Now, the Greek word, the biblical word for doctrine is the word “didasko,” and it is related word “didadskalia.” Both of these words refer to instruction in the truth—in the context of scripture, they mean instruction in theological truth. You see, false prophets and false teachers distort theological truth.
Now, I know that not all of you in here today are interested in theology, and there may be some of you who are not even interested in truth. A few years ago, before the year 2000, before the dawning of this millennium, I was sitting at home in my study reading a book, and Barb came home from the grocery store and she gave me a supermarket tabloid called World Weekly News. And Barb never buys tabloids at the supermarket, but she gave me this one called World Weekly News. I said, well, what’s this? She was smiling, and she said, well, I thought you might be interested in in the article on the front page. On the front page, the article was entitled “World Coming to an End in the Year 2000, According to Theologians.” They had pictured nine alleged theologians—some Jewish, some Christian, some Muslim, some new age. I did not recognize any of them. I read their names. I’d never heard of any of them. I read the article, and they all believed the world was coming to an end in the year 2000. I turned the page and there was a picture of a dog, and above the dog, a headline: “Dog Gives Man Mouth-to-Mouth Resuscitation.
I kind of smiled. I looked at the next page and there was a picture of an archeological dig. And within the archeological dig, a closeup of a human skull and a headline saying, “Alien Probe Found in Human Skull.” I began to laugh. I looked at the next page and I began to laugh out loud. The headline was “Judas Iscariot Blood-Sucking Vampire According to Experts,” I thought to myself, who writes this stuff? And who reads this stuff? Who reads this stuff? And it occurred to me then, as it occurs to me now, people who read supermarket tabloids are not seekers of the truth.
They are not seekers of the truth. They just want to be entertained. They don’t really believe the World Weekly News has the inside scoop on the end of the world. They don’t really believe in canine CPR, and they don’t believe in in vampires or alien probes. They just want to be entertained. They’re not seekers after the truth. We live in a world like that, where many people just want to be entertained. They’re not truth seekers.
Most of us are not seeking after historical truth; we don’t even care about historical truth. We go to a movie and we’re told the movie’s historically inaccurate. We just say, hey, it was entertaining. Who cares?
We don’t even want the truth regarding ourselves. We are, in the words of Scott Peck, people of the lie. We don’t want to know the emotional and psychological truth about ourselves. We pick counselors and friends who will make us feel good about ourselves. We’re not even into relational truth. We just want to get along. We want to feel good. We want to be entertained. We’re not really seekers of the truth, and certainly most people do not seek theological truth. But I tell you, there’s no truth more important than doctrine. There’s no truth more important than theological truth. What is the nature of God? What is the condition of man? What is the means of salvation? It all has to do with theological truth. It all has to do with doctrines. They are more important than anything.
You can take a class in comparative religion at an institution of higher learning, and you will learn about the various religious constructs of the differing religions of the world. And you will study their differences and their similarities. But the odds are that your professor will make no attempt to identify theological truth. The probability is your professor won’t even believe in theological truth. Your professor may be a postmodernist and not even believe in the possibility of absolute truth.
The Bible tells us in John chapter 18 that Jesus Christ, before He was crucified, appeared before Pontius Pilate. And He said to Pontius Pilate, “For this I was born and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. All who are of the truth hear my voice.” And Pontius Pilate said, “What is truth?” He didn’t wait around for the answer. The Bible tells us he just turned and walked away—the perfect postmodernist. There is no truth. Of course, Jesus is the Truth. Jesus is the Truth. For this He was born and for this He came into the world, that He might bear witness to the truth. He said, “I am the truth.” And He said to His disciples, “The comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will bear witness to Me and He will bring to your remembrance all that I have spoken to you.” He said to the Apostle John, “Write what you have seen and heard in a book.” You see, we have this testimony, Jesus Christ’s testimony to the truth, the word of God.
If a teacher or a prophet instructs in accordance with the Bible, they are true. If their instruction disagrees with the Word of God, they are false and they bear the fruit. Their tree bears the fruit of distorted theology as they disagree with the Word of God. There are people who say all religions are true. This is the affirmation of religious pluralism and theological syncretism. It is the politically correct position today. All religions are true. And that’s a logical absurdity because the religions of the world have differing theologies. They disagree one with the other. And the Bible tells us that mankind is created in the image and likeness of God, the imago Dei.
We are the crown of God’s creation, set apart for God. Human life is sacred to God. And if you believe that, it’s going to affect the way you view humanity and the way you treat people. Now, Hinduism, at least many forms of Hinduism, teach that all life has equal value—the fly on your patio window, the worm in your backyard, your children in their bedrooms. And according to the law of karma, all life has to have equal value because your children could return in the next life as a fly or as a worm. The Bible can’t be true and Hinduism be true; they can’t both be true. They contradict each other.
The Bible tells us that we are fallen—created in the image of God, but fallen. And there’s none righteous, no, not one. All have sin and fallen short of the glory of God and we need a savior. We are in need of redemption. This is the theological truth of scripture. Hinduism says, not so. Most forms of Hinduism deny the very existence of sin. And that’s true of many forms of Buddhism. They deny the very existence of sin. We’re not sinners, we’re just in process. We’re in process over many lifetimes and perhaps many life forms. We may be learning, we may not be learning, we may be advancing, we may be regressing, but we’re not sinners. We don’t need a savior; we don’t need redemption. Now that can’t be true and what the Bible says be true. They contradict each other. Those who say all religions are true are either stupid or they are naive to the uttermost. It can’t all be true.
Religious syncretism and religious pluralism, the politically correct theology of our age, view all cultures as sacred, all religions as equally valid. And they view it as arrogant and wrong for one religion to try to take their religion into another people’s culture. But Jesus says, “You shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth. Go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” You see, religious pluralism can’t be true and Jesus be true. Only one can be true. And we stake our life and we found this church on the belief that Jesus is true. And we take the gospel to the nations.
On January 8th of this year, George Carey retired as the Archbishop of Canterbury. And thanks to Britain’s archaic and philosophically peculiar union of church and state, Tony Blair gets to pick the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Tony Blair gets to pick George Carey’s successor. And of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the Anglican communion in Great Britain, with 26 million people. Not only that, the Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican communion, with 70 million people. And yet the prime minister of England’s going to pick the new Archbishop of Canterbury. And I’m not anti-Tony Blair. I think he has been very noble, particularly in the aftermath of September 11th. But he is by all accounts a nominal Christian at best.
He describes himself as a kind of cosmopolitan Christian. He reads the Bible, and he reads the Koran. According to the Economist magazine in their recent issue, they say it’s likely that Tony Blair is going to appoint as a new Archbishop of Canterbury a man named Michael Nazir-Ali, born in Pakistan. He’s the bishop of Rochester, a man equally immersed in the world of Islam and the world of Christianity. And should we care? Do you care about theology? Do you care about doctrine? Do you realize that theology and doctrine is about to split the Anglican Church? And not just the Anglican church. It’s about to split the PCUSA, the Presbyterian Church in the United States. It is splitting many mainline denominations.
You see the argument is over this. How do you know what’s true? Is it Jesus and the Bible or is it the culture? Those are the two sides. I hope and pray you believe in Jesus and you believe in His Word and your doctrine, your theology, is shaped from His Word and you have the ability to discern false teaching and false prophets. And you see the fruit that comes from the tree of a false prophet: distorted theological truth. You run it through the grid of scripture, and it doesn’t make it.
The second fruit of false prophets is false morality. “And you will know them by their fruit.” Next month my mom celebrates her 89th birthday. After these next couple of weeks and we finish the Sermon on the Mount, I’m going to go out there to be with my mom on her 89th birthday and my brothers will be there. And we’re all looking forward to it for many reasons. One, we just love mom and also we love the old house we grew up in. Mom has lived in the same house for 52 years and dad lived in that house until he died six years ago. He’s with Christ. But you know, we love going back home and seeing where we grew up and going into the backyard and seeing the swimming pool we swam in and the shuffleboard court we played on and the basketball court that’s there. And there are rose bushes and they are beautiful and there are fruit trees. Most of the fruit trees that were there when we were kids are still there. There’s grapefruit and orange—many different orange trees, mandarinquat trees (a tree that mixes tangerine and kumquat). And there are different types of plum trees.
We’ll be there in the wintertime and the trees won’t be bearing fruit, but I’ll know them by their fruit. I can look at each tree and remember the fruit that tree produces. And see, Jesus is telling us in this passage that that’s how we know people. We know them by their fruit. We know them by their thinking and by their behavior, by their doctrine and by their morality. And that’s how we know false prophets and false teachers: by their doctrine and by their morality.
I read some time ago about Ashurnasirpal II, and I know many of you have never heard of him, but he was a great king who ruled Assyria more than 800 years before the birth of Christ. And he built his royal palace in his capital city of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. And of course, that was also the city in the Bible to which God sent the prophet Jonah. He sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn the people that the judgment of God was about to descend upon the city because of their collective immorality.
Well, 162 years ago, in the year 1840, an archeologist named Sir Henry Layard was digging in the region of ancient Assyria and he discovered one of the greatest archeological discoveries in the history of the world. He discovered the ancient city of Nineveh, the city that was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. And as he continued the archeological dig and many people came, he unearthed the royal palace of Ashurnasirpal II, and he found many of the walls still together. And within that palace, he found a perfectly preserved ancient Assyrian sculpture. And he knew that this ancient Assyrian sculpture had unbelievable value, but he had little interest in money. He was an archeologist. He was interested in knowledge and history. And so he gave this perfectly preserved Assyrian sculpture to his principle source of funding.
The man he gave it to was very wealthy but had little knowledge of art or antiquities. He didn’t fully appreciate it. And he was building a new estate in Europe, and he took this perfectly preserved Assyrian sculpture and he built it into one of the walls of his new mansion. So, as you pass by that wall, you could see it within the wall. And the years passed, and the decades passed. Generations passed. Finally, in the year 1923, the descendants of this man who had built the European estate decided to sell the estate and they sold it to a boys’ school. And the boys’ school decided to reconfigure the mansion and tear down some of the walls. And the wall that contained the ancient Assyrian sculpture became part of the new cafeteria in the boys’ school. And the years passed, and a few decades later they reconfigured the school again. And that wall that contained the ancient Assyrian sculpture became part of the new gymnasium.
The students would from time to time see this ancient sculpture, and of course it was painted over and over again as the wall was painted. Nobody thought anything of it. Headmasters came and went. They didn’t think anything of it. Finally, just nine years ago, in the year 1993, an American archeologist was visiting this boy’s school in Europe. And as he looked at this wall and saw this sculpture, he was amazed and he recognized it as authentic. He recognized it as ancient, and he recognized it as probably Assyrian. It was tested and it was auctioned off at Christie’s auction house in London, England. And do you know what it sold for just nine years ago? It sold for $15 million. That probably doesn’t surprise most of us because we know that we live in a world of changing values and what was perhaps inexpensive and contained little value when first it was created can become so valuable over time that a dozen people can live the remainder of their lives off the proceeds from one artifact.
We live in a world like that. It’s a world of changing values. And of course, what is true in the financial and economic world is really true in the moral world. There’s a world of changing moral values and the morality that was acceptable in Assyria 3,000 years ago is different from the morality of America. Morality varies from culture to culture, from nation to nation. Even today and in this nation, morality is constantly changing. And we certainly see this in America and in our culture, and we see this with our sexual values and our sexual mores. Just a generation ago, premarital sex was considered sinful throughout our culture. In fact, any sex outside of marriage, even in the secular culture, was considered sinful.
Today, of course, that is not true, and premarital sex is largely acceptable in our secular culture today, unless the person is grossly promiscuous. Changing values morally… we see this in terms of homosexuality. Just a generation ago, homosexuality was considered sinful and it was unacceptable even to the APA, the American Psychological Association. Today, of course, homosexuality has growing acceptance. It’s considered by many to be a viable alternative sexual lifestyle. And the gay lobby in America has great power. Organizations and corporations from coast to coast in America live in fear of the gay lobby. And the gay lobby has convinced most people walking the streets of America that homosexuality is genetically mandated. I mean, they’ve convinced most people that homosexuality is genetically mandated, but that’s not true scientifically. I mean, if you read scientific magazines, journals, or books, you know that’s not true scientifically.
Science tells us that human sexuality is extremely complex. If homosexuality were genetically mandated, then in the case of identical twins where one was homosexual, the other would have to be. But you see, that’s not born out in reality or in experience. It’s not born out in life. No, our human sexuality is extremely complex and scientists tell us that there are in some cases some genetic factors of influence. There are large factors, in most cases, of environmental influence. And we are told there are also factors of choice.
The complexity of human sexuality and what is true in terms of human sexuality is true in other areas of human life. I mean, the causation with regard to alcoholism is extremely complex. And scientists tell us that there are genetic factors. 20% of the population of the world is genetically predisposed to alcoholism. But there are also large environmental factors and there are factors of choice. And scientists tell us the same thing is true even with regard to temper management. Your ability to control your temper and the extent to which you experience rage, SOME of that is genetically influenced. There are tremendous differences in brain chemistry, but there is also massive environmental influences and factors of choice. It has to do with the complexity of humanity.
We feel so enlightened today and we feel free to change our morality and accordance with our own wisdom. But you see, the Word of God doesn’t change. Jesus Christ, the Bible says, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This book transcends culture. What God has said 3,000 years ago is still true today, and your morality must come from the pages of scripture. Your morality must come from Jesus. Now, Jesus has told us that we are to love all people and we are to treat all people, even people with whom we disagree, with love. And we are to treat all people with mercy and grace because we ourselves are in desperate need of mercy and grace. And we are not to condemn people because we ourselves are deserving of condemnation. But we must never get to the point where we deny truth and we deny what God has said in His Word.
You know, I have here a book called “Is the Bible True?” written recently by Jeffrey Sheler, who was the religion editor of the US News and World Report. And this book argues that the Bible is accurate historically and that there’s increasing evidence from archeology that biblical history is accurate, particularly when compared with other books of antiquity. This is an incredibly accurate book historically. He seeks to defend the historicity of the Bible. I think that’s important. I believe in the historicity of the Bible, but I hope you understand what’s most important. The Bible is the infallible rule of faith and practice. Where do you get your theology? Where do you get your morality? It better come from this book.
I think the question we need to ask ourselves is really one of epistemology. You know, in theology and even in philosophy… the study of epistemology is the study of truth and your method of ascertaining the truth. What is your epistemology? How do you know what is true? Of course, during the enlightenment, their epistemology was the scientific method, which was really rooted in the teachings of Socrates and Aristotle. The scientific method. You know what is true on the basis of sensory observation and all the data that can be ascertained through the five senses combined with inductive and deductive reasoning. That is the scientific method.
That is the epistemology of the enlightenment. But you’ll never arrive at ultimate truth through that epistemology. I mean, you can’t discern ultimate truth through the scientific method. And as Christians, we have accepted the epistemology of divine revelation, believing that God has revealed Himself in history. And we see God’s revelation throughout history in the Bible, how He revealed Himself through theophany, through the glory cloud, the pillar of fire, the Shekinah, and the burning bush; how he revealed Himself through angelic mediation; how He revealed Himself through the high priesthood and then through the prophets. But ultimately, He revealed Himself through His only Son.
No man has ever seen the Father. The only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. And we have seen in the prologue of John His glory and His truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth. For this I was born, for this I came into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth.” And so we accept His divine revelation and it is the basis of our morality, the basis of our theology. It does not change. Those teachers, those prophets that are false, distort the Word of God, distort biblical theology and biblical doctrine. You are to be people of discernment. This is increasingly necessary as time goes by and apostasy increases. You must be people of discernment. You must know the Bible. You must be trained in scripture. You must be able to run all teaching through the grid of scripture. You must submit your life, I must submit my life, to the Word of God.
Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away. My Word will not pass away.” The Bible says, “All fleshes is like grass, all of its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever.” So, beware of false prophets. You’ll know them by their fruits. Let’s close with a word of prayer.