Sermon 17 – Warnings about Televangelists
Contrasting with Jesus’ exhortation to “enter by the narrow gate”, which is the way to life, he now speaks of those who look like those who have entered that gate (sheep), but who have gone the other way and will be extremely dangerous to listen to (wolves). Here, Jesus says,
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased true bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
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. 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 mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” [Matthew 7:15-23]
Let’s start with the where we got to last week, as it will have definite impacts on how we interpret this section. Firstly, noting Jesus’ oft allusion of his followers to sheep and of himself variously to “the door”, “the way”, and the “the life”, as well as “the good shepherd”, I take the interpretation of the previous passage,
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few”, [Matthew 7:13-14]
that Jesus is the “narrow gate”, and following him is the “hard way”. In connecting it with the Law and the Prophets, the only way to fulfill them is through his power, since we are fallen beings, and to not follow him or enter through him is to discard the Law and the Prophets that spoke about him, to reject the good gifts of God, and thus to fail to live up to the command to “do to others how you would desire to be treated”. Following Jesus is necessary and sufficient. And even if we can’t fulfill the Law and the Prophets, due to our failings in following Jesus, we know that he has fulfilled them and will bring us to the perfection necessary to enter the kingdom, even those of us with nothing to offer (the poor in spirit).
So now we see the outpouring of our choice to follow him or not. Going through the narrow gate and taking the narrow path is the way to life. And once we have become completely full of life – once we are healthy, then as Jesus’ metaphor of trees points out, we will bear good fruit. By fruit, we’re speaking of everything in the Sermon, from being salt and light, to not being anxious, to loving God and others. Love is that fruit ripened, the flower in full bloom. Jesus often makes the comparison to fruit-bearing plants, as well as to grain.
Jesus makes a fairly stark contrast here between those who bear good fruit and those who bear bad fruit. What of those who produce a mix? Let’s look at a section in the gospel of John where he talks about the fruit of the disciples (after Judas leaves to betray him):
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and i in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” [John 15:1-4]
Jesus is speaking to the disciples right before the crucifixion – right before Peter betrays him and the rest of the disciples flee and abandon him, and right after Philip and Thomas completely misunderstand and doubt him). And yet he declares that they have already born fruit; the word “prunes ” also means “cleans”, so when Jesus says that they are “clean”, he implies that they have already born fruit. Yet it is not some great visible thing – it is because of the word spoken to them.
So then those who are on the way to life may be bearing fruit that only is visible to God, as they have not fully escaped from disease. But the warning is about false prophets, not just any individual. A prophet was someone who claimed to have inspiration from God, making a false prophet someone who claims to know God and pronounce inspirations heard from Him, but has no connection to God. The nation of Israel had a terrible time of false prophets before her exile to Babylon. And as Jesus has previously put his Disciples no equal footing with the Prophets of God, this is warning about those who claim to follow Jesus, claim to have passed through the narrow gate, and claim to walk to hard way.
The problem of prophets is this: if they are from God, you should definitely listen to them. To do otherwise is to invite danger and judgment on yourself. But it is exceedingly dangerous to follow false prophets – they are not merely individuals who don’t know what they are talking about; they have made claims that they do and that everyone should listen to them. We’re not dealing with seedlings here – we’re dealing with full grown trees who have either grown with such life as to receive oracles from God and bear delicious fruit, or they are so twisted and diseased that they have come to believe that God is speaking directly to them when they are listening to themselves or to demons, and they believe that everyone else must eat their rotten fruit.
As such, there are only two classes left: those who bear good fruit, and those who fail to. Now granted we aren’t always in a position to judge all of the fruit an individual has produced, but whenever we see bad fruit appear, we shouldn’t listen to those speaking. Televangelists and their love of money taking advantage of the poor and dull, priests who love boys, pastors who love power, on and on. We shouldn’t be listening to those people. If they are not bearing good grapes, then we cannot recognize them as a grapevine.
The command, “beware of false prophets” sticks out to me quite a bit here. There is a danger in following their footsteps, but the biggest problem is following their teaching – and that is what we are to be wary of. It might seem that we are judging them (which we are previously warned against), but it is not the judgment of condemnation. We are not the ones saying, “depart from me, workers of lawlessness” or cutting down the tree and throwing them into the fire. That is reserved for God to do. What we are doing is using what we see of their fruit to discern whether we should have them as spiritual mentors and teachers.
We shouldn’t have spiritual mentors who haven’t had an opportunity to experience life with. We shouldn’t listen to those whose fruit we cannot judge. I would give the same advice for anyone reading this – if you don’t know me, don’t take my words too seriously. You haven’t seen how I live. We really need to be in relationship with people before allowing them to impart spiritual wisdom to us. Or if they are writers, then we should be pretty sure of the way their lives are lived before adhering to their teaching. Dead writers are best – you can see how their lives played out. That is the problem that I have with reading spiritual blogs and listening to podcast sermons – you are not in relationship with these people, so how can you judge their words to be good? That is also a problem I have with large churches – if the pastor [lit. shepherd] doesn’t know his sheep, the sheep certainly don’t have a relationship with him – so how can they rely on him for guidance? Certainly there is the witness of others around the pastor, elders and so forth – and so if you trust their judgment, then it may be good.
But it’s definitely difficult to judge the validity of variously philosophy and teachings, ex nihilo. Fruit is much more recognizable than roots, though some can recognize those as well. But false teachings are often purposely obfuscated, making them difficult to decipher and differentiate from the truth. But if the outcome of that teaching is humility, and grace, and love for God and others, then it is much easier to validate. But even if the teaching appears good, if the fruit of the teacher is not, then it’s dangerous to follow. It may be on track now, but will it tomorrow? The brilliance of Jesus was that his miracles and pithy sayings were accompanied by a life of humility and mercy and encouragement and love. His fruit matches his teaching.
In the second paragraph, there is a contrast between those who say “Lord, Lord” and those who do the will of the Father. Jesus strengthens this by adding their statements that they cast out demons, prophesied, and did great works [miracles] in the name of Jesus. These people claimed to have intimacy with Jesus, but his response is that he “never knew” them. There was never any intimacy between them. So whether they actually did these things (the magicians of Pharaoh duplicated the works of Moses, and we are warned elsewhere that false prophets will do great signs and wonders; also, the false prophets of the Old Testament would often say “The Lord Says”, but their inspiration were themselves), or whether they were so deluded to think that they had done these things or that their inspiration had come from God, when they were only listening to their own voices, they had no intimacy with Christ.
This is not the same thing as “calling on the name of the Lord to be saved”, which doesn’t declare intimacy, but is a plea for mercy and an acknowledgement of the power of God. Jesus says that people are “workers of lawlessness”, which contrasts with those who “do the will of the Father”. Lawlessness would be the fruit of action not in unity with the rest of the Sermon – Jesus’ discourse on the Law. The will of the Father certainly includes the command to love God and others, but also includes asking him for grace, and entering through the narrow gate – Jesus – and following the hard path – following Jesus. Without entering into that relationship with Jesus, great works will not save you. And saving is what we need.
