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The Shepherd is determined to keep you safe from the wolves

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Sermon for Trinity 8

Romans 8:12-17  +  Matthew 7:15-23

You know Jesus as the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep. He once spoke of the hirelings who see the wolf coming and abandon the sheep, because they don’t care about the sheep. But He didn’t abandon His sheep. He saw the wolf coming and allowed Himself to be killed so that His sheep might be safe, so that people might hear the good news of the payment He made for our sins on the cross, that we might repent of our sins, and believe in Him, and have eternal life in His heavenly pastures.

But we won’t have that eternal life if we don’t make it all the way to the end of our lives still knowing Him, still trusting in Him, still living in the safety of His holy Christian Church. And, the fact is, we have enemies who would drag us out of His Church. And the worst part is, these enemies appear to be members of the Church.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus, the Shepherd, speaks of the wolf again—the wolves that threaten to devour His sheep so that we don’t make it safely to the end. So our Shepherd steps forward to warn us. Unfortunately, it’s a warning that very few Christians take seriously. Because these wolves don’t look so scary. These wolves don’t have fangs or claws. They don’t look like wolves at all. They look like innocent, sensible, inspiring people—people who make a lot of sense, people who say things about God that sound good, that sound right. The hardest part, as I said a moment ago, is that they look like Christians. But you, Christians, pay attention to what the Good Shepherd tells you in today’s Gospel. Because the Lord is determined to keep you safe from these wolves, too.

In this case, He keeps you safe from the wolves by giving you a much-needed warning, which you are to follow throughout your earthly life: Watch out for false prophets. What is a prophet? It’s literally anyone who claims to speak for God, or to teach you something about God. And a false prophet is someone whom God has not sent to speak for Him, or who teaches you things about God that are not true. Now, many prophets have gone out into the world—Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs (like the woman whom the RNC invited onto the stage this past week to teach people about her god). But these aren’t the wolves Jesus is warning His people about. He doesn’t need to. Christians know better (or should know better) than to listen to prophets who aren’t even Christian. No, the ones Jesus is warning about come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. In other words, these are the ones who pretend to come in the name of Jesus, seemingly innocent, harmless, often having prestigious titles or distinguished offices in the Church. These are the ones you really have to watch out for, because they present themselves as ministers of Christ.

So, Jesus says, watch out for false ones, for ministers who are actually wolves. And, as Jesus describes in the last verses of our Gospel, they may not even know that they’re wolves who are tearing people to pieces with their teaching. Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, in your name did we not prophesy? And in your name did we not cast out demons? And in your name did we not perform many miracles?’ And then I will confess to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’” So being a false prophet isn’t necessarily an intentional thing. Many of them are perfectly sincere in what they preach, thinking they’re serving the Lord Jesus, thinking He’ll be welcoming them into heaven one day. But they’ll learn the hard way that what they preached, or what they practiced, was not what God the Father wanted them to preach or practice.

So how does one recognize a false prophet, if he looks and sounds so much like a true prophet? What are you supposed to look for? By their fruits you will know them, Jesus says. So whenever anyone, especially a minister, comes around claiming to speak for God, or trying to teach you about God, you have some work to do, if you would be faithful to the Lord Jesus. You have to examine their fruit.

First of all, if you’re looking for grapes, you don’t go looking among the thorn bushes. If you’re looking for figs, you don’t go looking in a patch of thistles. No, you go to vines that you know to be grape vines or to the tree that you know to be a fig tree. Likewise, if you’re looking for solid Christian preaching and teaching, for a prophet whom Jesus had sent to speak in His name, then you shouldn’t go looking outside the ministry of the Christian Church. You shouldn’t go looking to someone who got up one day and said, “I feel called by God to be a prophet (or a pastor or a minister).” You shouldn’t trust in someone who came along and said, “I found a Bible! Let me teach you what I’ve learned!” These are all the Glenn Becks of the world, the self-appointed radio prophets or TV evangelists or best-selling authors, or any woman who claims to be a pastor. They may also include any number of self-appointed ministers in those Christian churches that don’t even claim any relationship with the ministry established by Christ through His apostles. You don’t turn to such sources at all if you’re looking for the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. No, you go to the Christian Church and to the ministers who have been rightly called to the office of the preaching ministry.

But, obviously, you’re not done yet. Having approached the right kind of tree, an actual called and ordained minister of the Christian Church, now you have to examine the fruit from each one of those trees, to determine if it’s good or bad. And, just like with a piece of fruit, you can’t always tell just by looking at the outside. You have to cut it open and look at the whole thing on the inside. Now, obviously you don’t cut the minister open. But you have to investigate both what he teaches and what he practices. As the apostle John wrote in his first epistle, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. You examine the fruit, you test the spirits by examining their teaching in the light of the Holy Spirit’s inspired Scriptures. This is what the people in the little town of Berea did when the Apostle Paul first came to them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Jews in the synagogue listened to Paul’s preaching, and it rang true with them. But they didn’t just accept it or reject it. They searched the Scriptures daily, to see if what Paul was saying was true.

So you compare the whole teaching of a minister with the words of Holy Scripture. But even then, you have to be careful, because the Scriptures can be abused. The devil himself was able to quote from the Bible in his futile attempt to lead Jesus astray. And many, many people pull passages of Scripture out of context still today. So you have to know the Scriptures well enough to pull together the whole message of God and use it to evaluate a preacher’s preaching, to see if it’s true or not.

How true does a preacher’s preaching have to be? Or to turn it around, how much false doctrine does he have to teach in order to be recognized as a false prophet? Well, that depends. How much poison is it safe to consume? How much gangrene can you tolerate on your body? How highly do you value God Himself? Because, contrary to what many false prophets will tell you, God cannot be separated from His Word and from the teaching of it. As He said through the prophet Isaiah, This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at my word. And as Jesus said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away. And you remember what He added to His command to baptize? Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. Nowhere does God tell His people, “Just focus on My main teachings, and don’t worry about the rest of My doctrine.” Nowhere does God tell His people, “Doctrine doesn’t matter.”

And so the apostle Paul warns the Christians in Rome, Watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. Or, as Jesus simply put it, watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

This is why, after avoiding all the non-ministers in the world and their teaching, and then, after carefully evaluating the fruit of the other Christian churches in the world, and then, after carefully evaluating the doctrine that is proclaimed from this pulpit and taught by this minister, most of you here today have determined to attend here and to become and remain members here, to receive the ministry of God’s Word in this place, in obedience to both of Christ’s commands: to watch out for and to avoid false prophets, and to consume the fruit that you’ve determined to be good. I say that with humility, because, to produce good fruit in the teaching of God’s Word is a daunting task, an impossible one, really, without the continual aid of the Holy Spirit. And to recognize the good fruit of a spiritual tree also requires the Spirit’s help. But, in the end, we have determined that the Mormon prophets are false prophets, along with the Calvinist (Reformed) prophets, along with the Baptist prophets, and the papal prophets, and the Pentecostal prophets, and the Methodist prophets, and many Lutheran prophets as well. Again, I say all this with humility, but also with conviction, with the conviction that the ancient Creeds of the Christian Church are true, and with the conviction that the Confessions of the Lutheran Church are also true, and trustworthy aids in evaluating a prophet’s preaching.

But even with that, our job isn’t done yet, neither your job nor mine. It’s never done this side of heaven. Because the Lord Jesus knew that there would always be false prophets, going forth in His name but never sent by Him. He told us that, leading up to His second coming, there would be very many false prophets who would deceive many, and that’s precisely why there are so many different kinds of churches out there, because there are many false prophets, and because there are few who take seriously Jesus’ command to watch out for them.

But the Lord is determined to keep you safe from all the wolves, including the wolves masquerading as sheep, and as prophets who speak for God. By issuing the warning in today’s Gospel and seeing to it that His Holy Spirit had it recorded in Holy Scripture for us, and again seeing to it that His words are preached in your midst, He is carrying out His task as the Good Shepherd, warning you, guarding you, guiding you. Now you, as sheep of the Good Shepherd, keep putting into practice His warning to watch out. Use the Scriptures at your disposal. Use the ministry at your disposal. And trust that, as you seek to obey the word of Jesus in today’s Gospel, the Good Shepherd will use that very word to keep you safe from the wolves. Amen.

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By their fruit you will know them

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Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity

Romans 8:12-17  +  Matthew 7:15-23

Beware of false prophets. That is Jesus’ instruction to His disciples. Let’s begin this morning by giving thanks to God for that instruction, because without it, we might get the idea that the Christian Church on earth would be this glorious, easily identifiable, united entity, filling the whole world with a unanimous confession of Christ, with all its pastors and preachers in communion with one another.

But that isn’t what we see, is it? We see dozens and dozens of different doctrines, different confessions, church bodies that divide and then sub-divide and then split again and again into smaller and smaller groups. The world laughs at how divided the Christian Church is, and Christians wring their hands over it. They either try to fix it by brushing aside doctrinal differences and coming together on the basis of something other than doctrine—“deeds, not creed,” they say, are what matters. Or, they despair and say, “How can I ever know who’s telling me the truth? Why bother trying to figure it out?”

But the divine Author of our faith is the One who told us ahead of time to expect exactly what we now witness on this earth: false prophets, and many who follow them. In fact, if the visible Church were not plagued by false prophets, then Jesus would be a liar, and then where would we be?

And here we’re not talking especially about non-Christian false prophets, although there are plenty of them, too. Here in this Gospel Jesus is warning us about those who call Him, “Lord, Lord,” who bear the name “Christian,” who look and sound harmless, mild, gentle, innocent, intelligent, and sincere, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

And so we have the command—not the suggestion, but the command—from Jesus to beware of false prophets. It won’t do for Christians to say, “Meh, doctrine doesn’t matter.” It won’t do for Christians to say, “Why bother trying to figure it out?” It won’t do for Christians to tell Jesus on the Last Day, “You, know, Lord, I was pretty busy and never got around to actually checking to see if that preacher was telling me the truth or not. I was just a layman, after all. It’s not my fault I believed that guy (or that gal, as the case may be, and if it’s a woman pretending to preach in the name of Christ, you should know right away that she’s a false prophet). Anyway, Jesus, it’s not my fault. Blame the false prophet, Lord, not me for believing him!”

Don’t worry. Jesus will blame the false prophet. But He will also blame the one who heard His warning to beware of false prophets and refused to take heed. He will blame the disciple who had His Word and who cared more for earthly benefits than for the Word of Christ and who trusted more in the word of man than in the Word of Christ.

You must have God’s Word for yourself. Each one. Not the word of this or that pastor or synodical statement, or of this church or of that church father or of this diocese. You must have God’s Word. Your parents can’t have it for you. Your husband or wife can’t have it for you. Your church, your synod, your diocese, your pastor can’t have it for you. You must have it and be able to stand on it before God. And when you have it, then you are never to let go of it or let it be compromised or twisted or perverted or diminished. Then you are not to sit at the feet of one who teaches it even a little bit falsely, no matter what great earthly benefits you might reap from staying with such a preacher or with such a church, no matter what hardships or afflictions you may have to endure for holding onto God’s Word.

So how do you know? How do you judge? The Apostle John writes in his First Epistle, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. The test that St. John then sets before his readers is a doctrinal test, comparing the teachings of the preacher with the teachings that have been passed down from the holy prophets and apostles.

So when Jesus says in today’s Gospel that you will know them by their fruits, He’s talking about the teachings that they produce. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

Now, there is something to be said about examining the “fruit” of a preacher’s life and works. Ultimately the faithful preacher sent from God will show his faith in various ways, producing the fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control—while the false prophet may have good-looking works for a while, but his lack of concern for the sheep usually becomes evident, and fear instead of faith will tend to show itself. Fear that outweighs faith, fear that manifests itself in many ways, but especially fear to stand up for the Gospel if it means losing some earthly benefit; and unbelief when it comes to trusting the Gospel to do what God wants it to do, always trying new ways to bring people into the Church that have nothing to do with the Gospel.

But true prophets of God have a sinful flesh, too, and won’t always do the good they want to do. So judging a man by his life and good works should always be secondary. The main fruit of a preacher is the teaching he produces. The leaves and flowers on thornbushes can often appear just as beautiful as the leaves and flowers on grape vines and fig trees. You have to look past appearances, look past official titles, look past the preacher’s strengths and weaknesses, his personality traits, his niceness, his charm, look past how he makes you feel. Look to the teaching he produces, to see whether it is good or bad. Then and then alone will you know if the preacher is good or bad.

So what is the fruit Christians are to look for in a preacher? You look for teaching that either agrees or disagrees with what you know to be true from God’s Word. And since you are Lutherans who have already compared the teaching of God’s Word with the Small Catechism (and all the Lutheran Confessions) and determined that our Confessions teach the Word of God purely and without error, you look for teaching that either agrees or disagrees with your Catechism.

Let’s summarize those teachings briefly. The Ten Commandments teach what is good and right in God’s sight, how to love Him above all things and how to love your neighbor as yourself. But they also show how you haven’t done that, and so deserve only God’s wrath and punishment.

The Apostles’ Creed confesses who the true God is—one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who has made all things, who has had mercy on His fallen creatures by sending His Son into human flesh and giving Him into death for our sins and for our redemption, who sends His Holy Spirit into the world in the preaching of the Gospel to gather a holy Church by calling sinners to repentance and faith in Christ.

The Lord’s Prayer teaches you how to pray as Christians, what to ask for and what to expect from our gracious Father.

Holy Baptism teaches you how and where God first forgave you your sins, adopted you as His child and made you an heir of eternal life, by applying the merits of Christ to you and clothing you by faith with the righteousness of Christ. There the Holy Spirit gave you rebirth and began the lifelong process of sanctifying you and renewing you in the image of Christ.

Confession teaches you that baptized Christians are continually to confess your sins and trust that God Himself is the One declaring forgiveness to you through the mouth of His called and ordained pastor, who speaks to you in the stead and by the command of the Lord Jesus.

And the Sacrament of the Altar proclaims the simple truth that the risen Lord Christ now regularly feeds the members of His Church with His own body and blood, which are really present with the bread and the wine, to offer and seal to you the forgiveness of sins, purchased with the death of our Lord.

Now that’s a summary of a summary, and a necessary starting point. But God has put His whole Word at your fingertips to study and to learn, and the whole Book of Concord is a faithful guide, so that you can use it to see through all the lies and deceptions and falsehood that pass for “Christian teaching” these days.

Where you find the Gospel purely taught and the Sacraments rightly administered, there you know the preacher is a good tree who is bringing you good fruit. Where you find teachings that differ from this or practices that are contrary to this, there you should not look for good fruit at all, even if many things the preacher says are right.

And where you find good fruit, there you should remain. Where you find bad fruit—from there you should flee. Don’t settle for the “closest thing” or the “next best thing.” Remain with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Even in this church and in this diocese, I urge you in the name of Christ to continue to test the doctrine that is proclaimed from this pulpit, because there is no guarantee than a good teacher will ever and always remain a good teacher. Many good trees have gone bad over the ages, and many Christians have fallen away from the truth by continuing to cling to a good teacher gone bad.

Does this sound difficult? Does this sound like hard work? Who ever told you it would be easy? Salvation is free, already earned for you by Jesus! But the Christian life is not easy. It involves denying yourself and taking up your cross daily as you follow Jesus. And it’s serious business. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. The will of God is that you should abide in His Word and cling to it for dear life, for there He reveals Christ to you, and you are saved and justified by faith alone in Christ. There in His Word He speaks to you, and He’s always sincere. There He draws you to Christ and gives you eternal life and preserves you in Christ Jesus, who has made you this promise: If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. God is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.

Source: Sermons