There are men and women who claim to hear from God and have not heard from Him at all. Pastor Carey opened “Reject False Prophets” with a man who spent four years claiming to be an NFL player. He had video of himself signing a contract with the 49ers, video about the hardships of the league, and a social media feed that was one picture after another of the NFL life. He never played a day of it.
The church version looks just as good from the outside. The followers, the posts about closeness to God, the full room with no leaks in the roof. A false prophet, as Scripture uses the term, says they are a messenger from God with a message for you.
Continuing the Sermon on the Mount series, this is where Jesus warns us about them and teaches us to recognize them. It lands right after the narrow gate, where verse 13 says enter by it and verse 14 says the way is hard. Verse 15 gives one reason it is hard. There are counterfeits on the path with you, carrying a different message.
What Does a False Prophet Sound Like?
Verse 15 says beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Notice they come to you. We are not out hunting them and we never gave them permission. Notice it is plural.
They arrive with a comforting message. Christianity is hard, so let us ease the burden. Treating people the way you want to be treated is a little overrated, and surely Jesus did not mean everybody. Give money to God and God will bless you in return, which is seed faith theology. None of that matches what Jesus has taught since chapter 5. On money He said lay up treasures in heaven.
Pastor Carey said this is not meant to scare anybody. It is meant to make us vigilant and to lean in on the Lord, because these show up everywhere. At work. At the gym, where the conversation goes from sports to bad theology. Inside the church itself. At your front door with a pamphlet and a Bible you have never heard of, asking for fifteen minutes to explain the new way.
Why Do They Come in Sheep’s Clothing?
With small kids at home, Pastor Carey said children’s stories are on his mind these days, and this verse took him to Little Red Riding Hood. The friendly wolf asks the girl where she is going, gets to the grandmother’s house first, eats her, puts on the night clothes, climbs into the bed, and waits.
That is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They conceal their intentions. Nobody walks up and says they are here to wreck your life. They play the part, work a crowd, walk the walk and talk the talk, and it is fake. Then the verse says ravenous wolves, which is the reason for the costume. They want to tear the sheep apart piece by piece.
Who Actually Fends Off the Wolves?
This passage is not asking us to become great detectives on counterfeits. Pastor Carey called it an advertisement for the great shepherd, because the one who fends off a ravenous wolf is the good shepherd.
John 10:11 says I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. He knows the wolves are coming and what they intend, and what He says to them is over my dead body. That is the protection on offer, and His name is Jesus.
So do not put your trust in your own instincts. Plenty of us think we can tell when somebody means us harm, and we cannot, not always. Do not shrug the wolves off as a Sunday problem. As Rick put it, following truth takes courage. Follow Jesus with that courage, because He is the only one who can truly protect your soul.
How Do You Recognize False Prophets by Their Fruit?
Verse 16 says you will recognize them by their fruits, then asks whether grapes are gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles. Grapes grow on climbing vines and figs on shrubs and small trees, and in neither case do thorns or thistles stand next to the good fruit, because that is against the law of nature. The thorns and thistles are the false prophets, and the fruit is what they produce. Their words, their actions, their character.
Start with character, and question it alongside the teaching. Pastor Carey put himself on the chopping block. However good the teaching is, test the character of whoever is giving it, his own included. Does the teaching match the life? Then actions, because actions speak louder than words. Do not let eloquence cover for what happens off the stage.
The teaching itself gives it away too. Is the Bible a launch point, where a verse gets read and then most of the message is a different topic, or the foundation the whole thing is built on? Is there cherry-picking? You do not read three sentences at the library and announce what the whole book means. Is the message mostly motivational speech with sprinkles of Bible, a TED talk that leaves everyone on cloud nine?
Look at the aftermath too. Big church or small, talk to the people. Do you find love, joy, and peace that surpasses understanding, or greed, cliques, gossip, and moral problems that keep getting excused? We examine fruit at the grocery store before we buy it, so examine this too.
Verses 17 and 18 say a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a diseased tree good fruit. Being fair about it, a genuine man or woman of God shows good fruit more often than not, because we all have flaws. The telltale sign is what happens when bad fruit shows. Do they repent, or spend forever excusing it? God is not the author of confusion, so He will not send a false prophet with a good message.
When the fruit is bad, do not give the tree a pass or call it a fluke. On a hike you would throw out the diseased fruit and stay away from the tree too. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is not a chicken. If a prophet shows corrupt character, the message is not from the Lord, which makes claiming it blasphemy.
What Happens to False Prophets?
The man from the opening kept it up from February 2022 until this past August, telling women he was an NFL player and a wealthy investor, with the dating apps, the fake accounts, the luxury cars. Women started reporting him, the FBI built a case, and investigators traced roughly 1.3 million dollars taken from about 26 women. The operation got cut down.
Verse 19 says every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, and the one doing the cutting is the Lord Almighty. Trees bearing bad fruit have no use in His kingdom, and misrepresenting God carries a consequence.
So Jesus is asking for a long-range perspective instead of a short-range one. Look before you leap. Verse 20 closes it. You will recognize them by their fruits, or as the New Living Translation has it, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, you can identify people by their actions. Doing that is not a solo sport. We need the Lord’s help, and a healthy church around us.
How Do You Reject False Prophets?
Back when cash was common, the people whose job was spotting counterfeit bills did not spend their days studying fake money. They studied the real thing. The texture, the appearance, the security features, until a fake needed no analysis at all. They just knew it was off.
Same here. The way to reject false prophets is to focus on the true prophet. Jesus carries a message straight from God’s mouth, and He told us how to handle judgment, anger, and retaliation in a way that honors His Father. Follow His moral teaching like your life depends on it, with no plan B, the way a duckling follows its mother.
Plan your visit or find a life group and take that next step with people who will walk with you.