Sermon for Sunday, June 8th, 2025 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC)
Old Testament Reading:
[Deu 13:1-5 ESV] 1 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
New Testament Reading:
[Act 20:28-35 ESV] 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. 32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 33 I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. 34 You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. 35 In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”
Gospel Reading:
[Mat 12:33-37 ESV] 33 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Sermon Text:
[Mat 7:15-23 ESV] 15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Introduction
False prophets seek to divert true believers away from the narrow gate of Jesus Christ and to the wide gate and the easy way of their own choosing.
False prophets seek to bring praise to their own deeds.
False prophets lack knowledge of the true way of Salvation which is faith alone in Jesus Christ.
False prophets have chosen their own direction, and they want you to come with them.
So Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount warns his flock, “Beware of false prophets.”
I. Beware of False Prophets.
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” This is Jesus’s warning. Beware.
You cannot claim that he didn’t warn you.
And Paul has this same warning Acts 20 where he says “Be alert.” “Pay careful attention” because “fierce wolves will come in among you.”
False prophets then are twice referred to as wolves. They seek the fulfillment of their own appetites. And this results in the destruction of their victim.
The church of Jesus Christ, from the earliest days to today is warned to “beware of false prophets.” There was never a “golden age” of the church in which the threat of false prophets was not present. Neither in the early church, nor in the Reformation, nor in the Great Awakening, nor any other time. There has always been wolves, and so the warning of Christ is as applicable today as when he first spoke it: “beware of false prophets.”
But how do we identify false prophets?
If we are going to beware of them, we must know who they are!
II. Identifying False Prophets.
Jesus says, of the false prophets, “you will recognize them by their fruits.”
A note on the grammar here. Yes the Bible says “fruits” with an s. That is proper English. The plural of fruit is fruit when speaking of the same type of fruit (like 10 apples) or an amount of fruit, like a “basket of fruit.” But if you are speaking of a variety of mangoes, strawberries, bananas, and oranges, you can properly use an s and say “fruits.”
So you will recognize false prophets by their various fruits.
If they are a bad tree then they will produce bad fruit.
Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t say say “you CAN” identify them, but he says “you WILL” identify them.
This is comforting to believers because it tells us that while there are wolves, they won’t “get us.” We “will” identify them.
How will we do that? How will we identify the wolves, the false prophets, that seek to do us harm?
In Deuteronomy 13 we have a good test, a good line in the sand.
1 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.
So anyone that is teaching “another God” is a false prophet. That is an obvious “bad fruit.”
It is a “bad fruit” of false teaching, of false doctrine, of false faith.
And there is debate over whether the “bad fruit” Jesus refers to is of “bad doctrine” or of “bad actions / deeds.” With John Calvin, I believe it must be both wrong lifestyles and wrong doctrines, but primarily about their wrong doctrines.
Calvin: “It now remains to be seen, what are the fruits which Christ points out. Those who confine them to the life are, in my opinion, mistaken. … Under the fruits the manner of teaching is itself included, and indeed holds the chief place.”
We can identify the false prophet by his false doctrine AND his false lifestyle.
This doesn’t mean that every wrong idea and every sin makes a person a false prophet. We shouldn’t go around calling everyone a false prophet, a ravenous wolf, and a bad tree, if they have erred in their understand or sinned in their deeds.
Rather, the false prophet is identified because of their regular, persistent, non-repentant false ideas and evil deeds. They refuse to be corrected. They don’t admit their sin. They don’t look to Christ for forgiveness. Such a person is easily identified.
Jesus warns against these persons.
It is the job of the elders and the pastor of a church to give such a warning. It is our duty to point out the wolves in the world so that the sheep may be safe.
In bigger towns I know of pastors who have had to “run off” visitors who come with a mission of deceit. Handing out pamphlets that teach wrong doctrine; dangerous doctrine. Seeking to cause trouble in the church. And its not completely unknown even here in little Unionville.
So, when a new visitor comes I am elated, that is my first thought every time. But my second thought — and I don’t think this is wrong — my second thought is, why have they come here; were they trouble at another church? I hope not! But the shepherd not only wants to grow his herd, he wants to protect the sheep in the herd! And that comes first; you must protect the sheep and only then seek to grow the flock.
So we are to be warned against false prophets who come in among us, either by physical presence or through influence of their writings. We are to be warned BOTH against general GROUPS of false prophets today, and we should be warned of particular individuals who are false prophets today.
GENERAL
In general, as we saw from Deuteronomy 13 we identify false prophets as those who “go after other gods.” Most commonly there is the denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ. This is a common factor in most all false prophets; they deny that Jesus is Lord.
That was done in by Joseph Smith of Mormonism, Charles Taze Russell of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mary Eddy Baker who founded so-called Christian Science. They each denied the divinity of Jesus Christ and taught their followers the same. The Divinity of Jesus Christ always stands in their way, so they must deny it. They need Jesus to move out of the way so that their own teaches can be put forth.
But we — along with the Christian church throughout the ages – teach that Jesus is Lord, the 2nd person of the Trinity, very God of very God.
Now t is often asked, “Where did Jesus say that he is god?” This is the question of the cults and the false prophets. “Where did Jesus say that he is god?”
To that we should answer “You know not the Scriptures nor the power of God.”
Seven times in John’s Gospel Jesus said “ego eimi” – “I am” – in reference to himself being God who calls himself Yawheh (I Am) in the Old Testament.
Then there’s the fact that Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us.
And Jesus’s frequent miracles point to his divinity.
And finally, to me the strongest argument for Jesus being God is what he was put to death for. The people understood that Jesus claimed to be God, and for that he was crucified.
[Jhn 10:33 ESV] 33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
The false prophets are sorely mistaken. Jesus is Lord indeed.
Now, some other general “bad fruit” to “beware of” includes:
Any preacher who talks more about money than about Jesus. This is the “health and wealth” movement of “prosperity preachers.” “Send me $100 and I’ll pray for you and you’ll get $1000 in return from the Lord.” All the while they buy mansions and private jets on the backs of the followers they have conned.
It is clear that we should avoid modernist theology; that type of theology that denies the Word of God. It strikes me that modernist theologians almost can’t be called “false prophets” because they aren’t really “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” they are just wolves! Their errors are in the open. But at the same time they use the phrase “scholars say” to discount any truth of the Bible and to draw people astray. While the modernists are “wolves in wolves clothing”, many later modifications of theology like neo-orthodoxy and federal vision do try to sneak in as Biblical.
SPECIFIC
But is not enough to give GENERAL warnings of avoidance. We must specify individuals to guard against. Any true shepherd will call out SPECIFICALLY who the wolf in sheep’s clothing is.
We find that with the Apostle Paul. He mentions 8 SPECIFIC individuals for the Christians of his time to avoid. He calls out these false prophets. He calls out these wolves.
Hymaneaus (1) and Alexander (2)
[1Ti 1:18-20 ESV] 18 This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, 19 holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, 20 among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
Alexander again:
[2Ti 4:14 ESV] 14 Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.
Hymanaeus again with Philetus (3)
[2Ti 2:16-17 ESV] 16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus,
Demas (4)
[2Ti 4:10 ESV] 10 For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.
Diotrephes (5)
[3Jo 1:9 ESV] 9 I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.
Phygelus (6) and Hermogenes (7)
[2Ti 1:15 ESV] 15 You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.
And maybe Onesiphorus (8)
[2Ti 1:16 ESV] 16 May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains,
[We’ll have a spelling test later: Hymaneaus, Alexander, Philetus, Demas, Diotrephes, Phygelus, Hermogenes, and Onesiphorus/
So if Paul identifies SPECIFIC false prophets, we are in good company if we do the same.
Who then are specific false prophets TODAY that we should mark and avoid?
It is low-hanging fruit (no pun intended) to note charlatan televangelists like Benny Hinn. But he certainly deserves a specific mention.
There is Rob Bell, who I heard preach in person many years ago, who later came out as a sort of universalist.
There’s Harold Camping and all his false prophecies.
And we can include anyone who call himself a “prophet” or an “apostle.” Such is surprisingly common. Anyone who calls himself a prophet makes it easy on us to recognize him as a false prophet, for the simple fact that we have “the faith once delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3).
There’s Douglas Wilson — a popular preacher in Idaho — who has been a leader among the Federal Vision movement which denies the Gospel of Salvation by Grace alone through Faith Alone, even if Douglas Wilson says he no longer embraces the term “federal vision,” he still holds to its errors.
Now, I’m afraid I might be stepping on some toes with these specific references. The next two. I’m not an expert on these two persons, but I want to give a warning about them. And they are names I’ve heard even in this church, so it is important that I raise these names.
The first is Jonathan Cahn. If you look at his website you’ll see it is a lot of asking for money, it is a lot of political prophecy, a lot about himself, but nothing of Jesus. Indeed many Christians warn about him. One description from a reputable Reformed website says this: “Jonathan Cahn is a false teacher because he distorts Scripture, promotes speculative and extra-biblical revelations, and shifts the focus away from the gospel of Jesus Christ to nationalistic and sensational interpretations of prophecy. … Cahn’s teachings lead people away from the simplicity and sufficiency of the gospel, encouraging them to seek hidden knowledge, signs, and sensational prophecies rather than to trust in Christ and His finished work on the cross.”
Then, one last one. And it is my job to to give these warnings.
While Charles Stanley had a decent reputation, the preaching of his son Andy Stanley is quite concerning.
Andy Stanley affirms LGBT individuals rather than calling them to repent, he questions the miracles of the Bible, and as a weak view of the place of the Old Testament in the Christian life.
This has led various Christian leaders and publications to express warnings about him.
For example, Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis says this: “Andy Stanley is a teaching pastor with a large flock in the Atlanta area of Georgia. Recently, I was alerted to two clips from sermons he recently preached—and these clips greatly concerned me. Not only do they contain error, but they show a complete lack of respect for the Word of God as what it is—the very Word of God—and as the ultimate authority.”
Another, Tony Perkins — a Baptist pastor, president of the Family Research Council, and a former member of the US House of Representatives — doesn’t pull any punches. He said “Andy Stanley is a false prophet, and I believe he is going to have to give an account for ignoring Scripture.”
Similarly, Denny Burk, a professor of theology who writes for Ligionier Ministries says of Andy Stanley: “What kind of a teacher would tell God’s people that their verbal affirmation of the Bible’s teaching on marriage somehow absolves them from the need to repent of sexual sin? Only a false teacher says things like that, and sadly that appears to be what we have before us here”
My understanding, basically, is that Andy Stanley is trying to win people over to faith, but has so watered things down (especially in regards to sin and the authority of God) that the faith he is trying to win people over to is no longer the Christian faith.
But I wanted to give a charitable interpretation, so I listened to an Andy Stanley sermon to see if what I’ve been hearing is in error. I just chose a sermon of his from a couple weeks ago. Stanley says in his sermon “We have a tendency to just size people up and write them off based on a single chapter in their life.” … “Jesus didn’t size people and write them off.” (Well what about the Pharisees, the Hypocrites, the money-changers? )Then, Stanley says “God takes your entire story into account. Your sin, your past, your failure, your behavior, your secret habit does not define you in the eyes of God.”
I don’t know about you, but whether God takes part of my story or all of my story in account, I’m in trouble. What we need is not “our whole story”; what we need is Christ. Stanley sounds a lot like our passage saying “Lord, Lord, did we not do this and that in your name?”
Stanley says we should “accept God’s estimation of you.”
Again, this is bad.
God’s estimation of you and me, is sin.
We are damned but for the righteousness of JESUS applied to us. Credited to us because of His sinlessness.
That was only 5 minutes of an Andy Stanley sermon and it was clear to me that his focus is not on Christ.
III. The Fatal Flaw of False Prophets.
We have yet three more verses to look at:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
These verses (21-23) connect with verse 15-20 which came just before. They connect in that they are still speaking about the false prophet.
The false prophet will say ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ That is, they will say “Look lord, look at what I DID.”
Their focus is on themselves rather than on the Lord.
It’s not that they didn’t “WORK” for the Lord — they did all sorts of things supposedly in His name — but they didn’t have faith.
Jesus said: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
What is the will of God?
[Jhn 6:40 ESV] 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Believe.
[Act 16:31 ESV] 31 “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
The ultimate problem with the false prophets, the fatal flaw of those who say “Lord, Lord” is that they lack faith; they lack saving faith in Jesus Christ. They replace Christ with works.
Let me say that again, for it is the main point today: the fatal flaw of the false prophet, the reason which Christ says to them “I never knew you” is that the lack faith in Christ. They do not believe in Jesus Christ, that he is Lord and saves His people from their sins. They lack faith. And it is only through faith that salvation is taken hold of.
The theologian John Gill write of this passage in Matthew’s Gospel:
“It may be observed that these men lay the whole stress of their salvation upon what they have done in Christ’s name; and not on Christ himself, in whom there is salvation, and in no other; they say not a syllable of what Christ has done and suffered, but only of what they have done. Indeed, the things they instance are the greatest done among men; the gifts they had were the most excellent, excepting the grace of God; the works they did were of an extraordinary nature; thence it follows that there can be no salvation, nor is it to be expect from men’s works.”
Conclusion:
They’ve done the greatest works!
And Christ does not deny their works.
So they are not suffering from having faith without works.
They must therefore be suffering from a lack of faith.
And for them there is judgement.
If Christ send these people to hell,
our hope must not be in our works but in Christ.
The wolves never mention Christ.
It is always “look at what we did.”
When they should say “Praise Christ for what HE did.”
The gospel of Jesus Christ: by the works of one man many will be made righteous.
The bad fruit is their focus on self and works.
The good fruit is from the Holy Spirit in you. The fruit is OF the spirit. It comes from God, not self.
There will be judgement.
All will be judged.
But not all will be condemned.
[Rom 8:1 ESV] 1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Trust in Jesus Christ.