All right. Good morning, church. So thankful you're here this morning. We are continuing our series. We've only got a couple weeks left.

We've been going through the Sermon on the Mount together. We've entitled this sermon series Kingdom Living. If you've missed any of these along the journey, they're all posted online. You can check them out at Eastgate Church, and I pray they'll be a blessing to you. But the good news is a lot of these kind of standalone in a way, Jesus is continuing a process that he's building.

He's building on a foundation in this sermon that. But every one of them has something unique to say, I think, for you. And so I pray that if you're new here, that this one would still speak to you. The word of God says it never returns void. I really faithfully believe that that something the Lord's going to speak to you today, hopefully in a way that both encourages you and challenges you where you need to be challenged.

I found this scripture this week to do all of that for me. And so all I'm trying to do now is return the favor. And so we're going to be in Matthew chapter seven in just a few verses together and what we're seeing here now, if you've been on this journey, the Sermon on the Mount has been so much about teaching and learning, and he's giving great instruction. A lot of it. So much of it is countercultural, and so much of it is him saying, hey, you've heard it said this way, but let me build on that, let me expound on that.

So much of what Jesus is doing here is building on the foundation set by the prophets, by the Old Testament, and now he's putting that into new, fresh light. And so much of it is countercultural, not only in the first century, but I would argue, even more so in the 21st century. And now he's reaching this place in the sermon where we're concluding. And really like any good preacher would, and certainly Christ is the best preacher of all time, he is now entering into a time of response. What are we to do with the instructions that we've received over the last several, several weeks going through the Sermon on the Mount?

And so last week we began this finale, if you will, of warnings, instructions, response, a call to response. Last week he said, there are two gates, there are two ways. One is narrow, one is broad, one leads to life, the other to destruction. Which will you choose? He invites you last week to enter into the narrow gate.

Now he is warning us about some false teachings and false prophets that might lead you back to the broad gate. And so that's where we're going to spend time today. We saw him speaking of the gates. Now he speaks of how others might lead you to that path of destruction he calls them. In fact, he calls them wolves in sheep's clothing.

Dr. Akin, when writing on this, says that just as it matters which spiritual and moral road we travel, it also matters listen to this church, which spiritual teachers we listen to and which moral guides we follow. And so looks can be deceiving. You've often heard it said this way. Hey, don't read a book by its cover. Well, that applies both good and bad.

Don't look at someone or look at the way that things are going for them and assume that they've got it figured out or that they're teaching you correctly. Pay close attention, because they could be a wolf in sheep's clothing. In order to discern whom to follow. Jesus is telling us that teachers act a certain way towards God's people and that there will be a fruit in the end of their teaching. Now, this might be a very valid question today.

Why do we need this warning? Why do we need it today in the 21st century? Is Jesus primarily talking about the teachings and warnings of his day? I would say it's true that he is addressing false prophets and teachers of his day, but it is just as applicable today, if not in so many ways more so. Can I make that argument to you for just a minute?

That not everyone who claims to speak for God or claims to speak truth is actually doing so? Many people are deceivers in disguise. They're not only deceptive, but they're dangerous. And nowadays I believe you have the opportunity for more false or just false truth or false teaching than maybe any other time in human history. You have access to this thing that's probably in your pocket right now where you can go to a hundred different things and see thousands of different people teaching on various things.

And they may not say various things. You're scrolling. At night, they may not say, hey, this is a new form of worship. But at the end of the day, this is the culture that we live in now that is teaching a secular gospel. And it has certain tenets, certain things that people are supposed to believe.

And guess what? If you don't do it, you can get canceled. Like there's a whole church, if you will, of the culture. And it's as functional today as it's ever been in human history because of that little device in our pockets. And so I would argue that this is as important of a message today as maybe it's ever been historically.

In fact, I heard this stat recently, and this one concerns me, that Most Americans spend 40% of their waking hours on the Internet. 40%. Now, some of that you can't help. Some of you work in job fields where you're just there. And that I'm sure has something to do with that.

But that isn't everything. 40%. In fact, the stat goes on to say it's somewhere around six hours a day that the average American spends on the World Wide Web learning. And guess what? That's scary for me because the Bible says of preachers, of pastors, that we are to give an account of our churches and of how our sheep go.

Right? We are to give an account. Well, that's disheartening to some degree, because guess what? I get about 40 minutes one day a week, and the world gets a lot more time. And so my encouragement to you today is, listen in.

There are false teachings of our day. There are many. And Christ Jesus himself says, beware of these things. He's not alone. Jesus warns of this in the text we're in.

He warns many times in the Gospels. Paul warns of this in the book of Acts, the book of Second Corinthians, Second Timothy. Peter warns of this in Second Peter, John as well. In 1 John the apostles, Jesus himself, there's a great warning against false prophecy and Jude. In fact, if you've ever read the Book of Jude, the little bitty guy pretty much dedicates his whole book to the subject.

He's on it. So here's where we're going to be today. If you were with us a few weeks ago when we started Matthew, chapter seven, we get this really famous verse that has become almost the only thing anybody can remember about Christianity, and that is judge not lest you be judged. And most people will stop there and not keep reading. But God, Christ Jesus is not done there.

He's teaching us. Hey, don't be judgmental, but be discerning. Yeah, don't wear a judgment for others that you wouldn't do upon yourself. But you ought to be discerning of broad gates, narrow gates of teaching. You ought to beware.

In fact, that's what he says. So let's dig in. Matthew, chapter seven, 15, 20, we get this warning, and I think also a comfort. Verse 15. Beware of false prophets.

This is Jesus speaking, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree 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. This is God's word. Amen. I pray that it helps you today, that it encourages you and also helps you in life.

That's what the word of God, I think, should always do for you. I believe here we can understand that in Christ Jesus we can exercise a kind of discernment that will guide everything. A kind of discernment, spiritual discernment that helps us to, number one, know the truth in order to spot the deception. Know the truth to spot the deception. He begins with a strong warning.

In fact, the only command of this section of Scripture from Jesus is the command, beware. Beware. Be warned. There are people who don't have your good in mind. Did you know this yet, Church?

Did you know there's people in your life that could care less about you. They care a whole lot more about themselves, and they will do anything to prop themselves up. If you haven't learned this yet, I've just given you some helpful news. Because there's people in your workplace. There's people, guess what?

Terrible. There's people in your family that are this way. They care more about themselves than they do you. And they will tell you anything, to itch and scratch your ears so that you think well of them. But at the end of the day, the word of God here is teaching us that they are false people, false teachings.

They come in disguise. They come dressed like sheep, meaning they look innocent, they look harmless, but they're ravenous wolves. To this, Christ Jesus says, beware, Be attentive. Be on guard. We make a mistake sometimes as Christians, in taking some of the principles of our faith a little too far.

There are truths like this. We should be a people of grace. Yes. We should be a people of grace, of unconditional love and mercy. Yes.

These are things that Christ Jesus is and pours out in us. We should be people of truth. We should be people of compassion. These are all true things. Does the Bible teach, though, that we should be ignorant?

No. Does it teach us that we should be doormats? No. It instead says, judge not in such a way that you become haughty and become like the Pharisees. No.

No. But be discerning in such A way that you would know people by their fruit. You would see the outcome of their life and go, that's not of God. And know not to follow that. He says, beware false prophets.

The Greek word here is almost a complete transliteration. That means. It comes right from the Greek into the English. It's the word pseudoprophetes. The word prophet, you see right there?

So pseudo is a word we really know to mean false. That we use this word still today. So it's one word that literally means false or pseudo. Prophets. They come saying they know special utterances of God.

But this, I think, goes far beyond this, that there is false teachings that are rampant in our society and our culture. And they come wearing sheep's clothing. Now, I think he chooses this on purpose, not only for us to see. The imagery of. Like a sheep is not something you would fear, right?

Like, when I think of sheeps, I think of those cute little ones that if you scare them real quick, they go and just fall over. Like, that's what I think of. And Christ compares us to that. So just, you know, deal with that. But, like, we're.

That, you know, stuff scares us. Every once in a while we just fall over and pray, lord, help. And he compares us to that often. So now he uses this illustration on purpose. They come in sheep's clothing.

What does that mean? Well, yeah, innocence, harmlessness. They look like they're going to be okay, but it's bigger than that. He says they come wearing the team jersey because the Christian team jersey is sheep. Knuckleheads.

We're wandering off. We need a shepherd. That's all of us. That's me too, friend. I don't mean that ill of you.

That's how God sees us. We are his sheep of his pasture. And we need the great shepherd, Lord Jesus. That's who we are. But the false prophets come wearing the team jersey.

Oh, I'm just a sheep, meek and mild and gentle. But that's not who they really are because inside they're wearing a fake jersey. Because inside they're wearing the other jersey that is Ravenous Wolves. Now, I don't know, like, if I was making a sports team, I wouldn't name us, you know, the Jerusalem Sheep or something. You know, that's not the greatest.

Like, it's not a very aggressive name. I'd rather be the Babylon Wolves or something. I mean, that sounds dope. But this is the problem of this false prophet who comes wearing sheep's clothing. Internally, though, this word has to do with being aggressively Greedy, grasping, ravenous wolves.

They're deceptive, they're dangerous, and they're not on your team. They're not truly wearing the team jersey. Jesus warns many times about this. I mentioned this already. Here's another place.

In Matthew 24:11, Jesus says many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. He is telling us that things are going to continue in this way. After I am crucified and resurrected and after you're walking by faith, and after I send the comfort of the Holy Spirit, there will still be, still be false prophets who arise and will lead many astray. Beware, then, of man's disguises. Satan himself is this way.

He disguises himself. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, Such men are false prophets, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, he says, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

What does that mean? Church. That means with everybody be on guard. Now, this might not sound real churchy, right? We just spent some time shaking hands, and y' all just probably met some people you've never talked to.

What does that mean? As Christians, then? All right, we should be cordial, we should be merciful, we should be gracious. But I'm not just going to meet you for the first time and assume you know what you're talking about. And that's okay.

Do you know that's okay? I don't just have to come up to you and you say, I'm a Christian. So here's everything that's true. I'm going to have to watch you for a while. There's going to be a time of testing in our relationship.

You're not going to go from, hey, I just walked into your church, to, so now you're my best friend and I'm dependent upon everything you say. That would be a little bit foolish. And you might think, hey, but the church should be this way. You know, we should be able to just. Yes, that's the goal.

But we're not going to get there overnight. All right? Let's spend some time together. Let's start to test the fruit. He says you've got to know them, because guess what we can't do?

We can't judge the heart. Only the Lord God can do that. So. So we've got to wait a little bit. We've got to become fruit inspectors.

We've got to start. And y' all Are already great at this. I see y' all at the grocery stores banging on watermelons and stuff, which, by the way, is completely useless. I don't know if you know this yet, but look this up on Google. Tapping watermelons and listening just makes you look like a dummy.

It means nothing. All right, look for the ones where the stripes are really close together with some yellowing, and you'll do well. Okay. That's how that works. Stop tapping them.

It's not a seashell. You're not going to hear anything. So you're doing the fruit inspection. Oh, this apple feels better than this apple. Who knows?

I mean, just get some apples, right? But in people, in relationships, spec the fruits, look at the life, look at what's producing. Go. Hmm. Is this someone that I want to put in my inner circle, or do I need to be kind of leery for a little while and see how things go?

He says, be spiritually discerning. Do you hear this? Don't judge them. I'm not coming here saying, hey, this person is an unbeliever. They're far from God.

I'm not doing that. I'm just looking at the fruits and going, I don't know if I'm going to line up with this person right now. I need to give it some time. That's spiritual discernment. The Bereans are applauded for this.

This is a group of people from Berea called the Bereans. We see them appear in Acts chapter 17. It is spoken well of them that when Paul came teaching, they didn't just believe him. The apostle Paul shows up and they said, we're going to study this first before we just say amen to what you're saying. And the Bible applauds them.

Listen to this. Acts 17:11. It says the people of Berea were more open minded than those in Thessalonica. They listened eagerly to Paul's message. Then they searched the scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.

I give you permission, Church. Hear me. Don't miss this. I give you permission to take anything I ever teach and study the word of God and decide. Don't just say, hey, here's a guy who went to seminary who looks like he might know what he's talking about.

I don't even know if I do look like I know what I'm talking about. I hope so. But don't take my word for it. That's why every time I preach, it's going to be absolutely loaded with scripture. And I'm going to do my very best to give you what I believe.

The apostles, what Christ Jesus said, that's all I'm trying to do here. You go home, study it and make sure this is the case like the Bereans did. I had this conversation recently with brother Rich, who used to work at a credit union. This is a really great thought on this that came to me and I was like, well, I just had this conversation, interestingly enough, that when you go into banks and you deal with money a lot, I'm sure they do some trainings at times on counterfeit bills, but I don't think they have to do a lot of training because guess what happens if you work as a teller for a long time, you interact with the real thing so much that the counterfeit stuff becomes so obvious. You get this.

So the more time you spend, this is why an electrician, a good one, can walk in and just look into a panel box and go, nope, I can't do that. I'll look in there and go, it looks alright to me. I mean, there's nothing like a good plumber will look under something and go, whoa, what's going on here? A good mechanic the same way looking in there and going, what in the world happened? Who worked on this?

And then you sadly have to say, me, it was I.

The principle is this. When you spend time around the real thing, the counterfeit stuff's obvious. Do you know why people get led astray so much when it comes to spiritual things? Biblical teachings? It's because of an unfamiliarity with it.

I heard at one point that one of the largest groups of people that were coming to Mormonism were actually churchgoers that were no longer really in church. You know, they had fallen out of that habit, if you will, and so now they're deceived by a lie. And so how do we know the counterfeit bills? How are we to know them? How are we to know when we hear false teachings?

The Bible says we should be inspecting their fruit. Well, how do we know if it's good or bad fruit? Well, we need to get to know good fruit. Go back to Matthew, chapter 5. Jesus has just said, here's what it actually looks like.

Meek, poor in spirit, here's what it actually looks like. That you would have a godly perspective on marriage that says no to divorce, that you would have a godly perspective on fasting and praying. He's given us the thoughts here on the Sermon on the Mount and now he says, so beware of the false stuff. Do you know the voice of the good shepherd? Some of us, unfortunately, we hear the howling of wolves and we go, that sounds like somewhere I need to go.

I need to go over there. Rather than hear the voice of the good shepherd saying, come back, friend, don't go over there. Jesus says this. In fact, in John's gospel, John 10:27, it says, My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. Here's the encouragement to you today, believer.

Spend time with the good shepherd. Have a habit of talking to the Lord so that you might know his voice. Talking to him here, here in prayer. This is the communication. He speaks to us in this, we speak to him in prayer.

There's a back and forth and I'm trying, I tell you church, a great prayer and a prayer I'm praying more and more is, I simply want to hear and know your voice, God, just when you show up, when you're on the move, give me eyes to see it. When you put somebody in my life, that's like a duh, Jonathan, you need to deal with this. Like, help me to see that. God, I want to know you. I want to know your voice.

I want to hear it when it's, when it's spoken. Help me not to miss it. That's a great prayer when I'm praying. When I read your word, God, speak boldly to me even when it challenges me. Help me to have the heart to follow you.

My sheep will know my voice. Friends, you can beware of the false stuff that's floating around everywhere and know where you're being led when you follow the good Shepherd. Are you immersing yourself in scripture? Have you made this thing like breathing? Have you gotten to the point where you're like, man, if I don't spend time with God today, it's like missing a meal.

I start feeling a grumbling in my gut. When you have this physical component that's such a reminder of like, I'm exhausted, I need to sleep, my stomach's grumbling, I need to eat. Will you build the kind of hunger for the word of God and for presence and with the Holy Spirit presence that you would have an ache in your gut when you miss time with him. Those are the kind of people who can practice spiritual discernment. They know the truth and they can spot the counterfeit and it's not even hard, they begin to look at that and go, wow, that's already missing some key components that are Christlike.

Alright, so that's the first, know the Lord so that you can spot the deception, and then inspect the fruit. This is what he's doing. Inspect the fruit so that you can expose the disease. Inspect the fruit so that you can begin to expose the disease and so that you don't have to get wrapped up in it. That's the whole point.

That's why he's telling us to beware. Recognize it so that you don't get sucked into it and live a life of just uselessness or worse. He says you will recognize them twice, verse 16 and verse 20. He says, you will recognize them by their fruits. Not just their words, not just their clothing, but their fruits, their actions, and then the results of these things.

And he makes an agricultural illustration which is common among all of the Bible writers. There's a reason for that. This is a very agrarian society. I try to make my illustrations apply to you. This is good preaching right here.

It's like, let me find something that most of us are interacting with. This is farm to table here that Jesus is dealing with. And so he says, hey, here's a couple of things you already know. And I bet the people, people may have even laughed. I don't know.

I don't know if this would have hit. But he says, hey, you're not going to find grapes and thorn bushes. Maybe the people chuckled. We hear that go, I don't know. I guess we don't spend a lot of time in thorn bushes, right?

Like, I have to go outside on purpose. Isn't that crazy? Like, some of you are like, man, I'm outside every day. Not me. I have to.

I recently read that I'm vitamin D deficient, most likely. Did you know that? You know where you get vitamin D? You got to go out in the sun. And we didn't have that problem as human beings historically, but now we do.

Because I'm in the office typing up stuff and researching so I can preach good, right? And so I can counsel better. And I'm working on this. But guess where I'm not. I'm not in the sun.

So now I'm feeling like, man, I'm not happy. I feel kind of like in my feels, you know, because I'm not getting enough vitamin D. So I'm not spending a lot of time in thorn bushes or among thistles. Some of you might be. But I bet this people heard this and go, well, yeah, I mean, duh, where you going with this, Jesus? Maybe they even chuckled a little bit.

He says, plainly, don't go into thorn bushes looking for Grapes don't go among thistles looking for figs. Why are these synonymous? Like thorn bushes are the prickly stuff, right? Where you get into that and you hate your life, right? You get into that.

You get into that on a four wheeler, just so you know. And you might lose an ear. Just ask my brother next time you see him. But I'm telling you, thorn bushes are a good time. Thistles are those things that you walk through and if you ever walk through a field or something like that and you get all these little spots, spiky balls all attached to you, and you're like, okay, well, I'm taking nature with me, I'm taking nature home.

That's thistles, right? Little things that stick to you so that you can continue to propagate the world. With thistles, man. Thistles are the worst. He says you're not going to find grapes and figs there.

Just like you're not going to go up to a healthy tree and expect bad fruit or a diseased tree and expect good fruit. Very. Just rudimentary kind of thinking. This is on purpose, though. He's trying to get you to see something like start inspecting the fruits and going, alright, let me backtrack.

Is this someone I should trust? There are people in your lives right now that are speaking. I know this for a fact. They're in your workplaces, they're in your homes, they're on your phones. You're hearing people speak into your life.

Certain things that are either true or false. There may be people in your life that are giving you the loving truth and you should praise God for them. The kinds of people you know, a good friend. I heard this recently. You know a good friend, if he will tell you to your face some stuff that you're doing wrong, but behind your back speak only well of you.

You found a good friend when he's got your back, when you're not around, but to your face he will say, you're being an idiot. I love you too much to see you keep doing that. That's a good friend. You don't have many of those, I bet, but there's people speaking into your life. They're teaching you whether you even know it or not.

And the more you spend time there, you start learning, you start engaging it, you start soaking it up so that maybe at the end of the day you're going, why do I feel anxious? Why do I feel angry? Why do I hate my job? I didn't hate this church job yesterday, but today because I've spent All day with John or Bill or whoever. He hates his job.

Now I'm starting to hate mine.

Bad fruit. Paul gives some examples like this of bad fruit from false teachers. In 1 Timothy, chapter 6, he says, Anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lacks understanding. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to. To quibble over the meaning of words.

This stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt and they have turned their backs on the truth. To them, a show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy. You know, people like this already.

The people in your lives that all they seem to be, their whole objective seems to be, is to tear things up. They just want to cause division and trouble. Those are people that. You're not trying to judge them, you're not trying to shun them, but you shouldn't follow them. They're not bearing the fruit of the Spirit.

In fact, Paul puts in juxtaposition two kinds of things. We have the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, chapter five, and it's wonderful. Love, joy, peace, patience. That set of nine wonderful things. Gentleness, faithfulness, all of that, self control.

But before that, he says, there's some works of the flesh. This is the fruit of the diseased tree. Galatians 5, 1921. It says, these are the works of the flesh, and they are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry.

Excuse me, sorcery, enmity, strife. Strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I've warned you before, that those who do these things, such things, will not inherit the kingdom of God. This is the fruit of the world. This is the fruit of the diseased tree.

And there are some of these things that I recognize. I'm tempted by jealousy. There's a lot of people, and I can be one of them at times, that think I have a right to my fits of anger.

When I see fits of anger in a little child, I'm like, you need a spanking. When I do fits of anger myself, I go, well, I'm justified. It's funny how I do that right. It's fine if it's me. It's just not fine if it's you.

He says, these are the fruits of the flesh. These are the works of the flesh. These thorns and thistles that Jesus is speaking of, these go all the way back to the curse. Genesis 3, in fact, says to Adam, he Said, cursed is the ground because of you in pain. You shall eat of it all the days of your life.

What does he say? Thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you. Not only do these things not yield grapes, they don't yield figs and grapes. Instead, they yield pain.

They yield destruction. Now, I'm going to do something for the next minute or two that isn't specifically in the text, but I couldn't help myself this week. Here is Jesus saying this, Beware of false prophets. And I thought it would be disingenuous for me to not tell you what I think some of these might be in our modern culture. I hope this is okay with you.

If not, talk to me later and we'll discuss where I landed on this. But there are some thorns and thistles of our day that are drawing men, as Jesus said, are leading men astray, leading mankind astray, even within. Here's a few of these. And I speak to these every so often, but I thought I should just take them head on. Today there is a very prominent gospel movement called the Prosperity Gospel movement.

And I want you to know something. The Bible does not teach, in fact, some of the things that they teach. One quote I heard from someone in that movement, some call it the Word of Faith movement. That sounds a little prettier than Prosperity Gospel. But don't be fooled.

One quote I heard is, God guarantees health, wealth and success if you have enough faith or sow enough seed. That's kind of at the core of this sort of false teaching. Here's a problem, though. False prophets will always exploit people's desire for comfort and for blessing, offering promises that, frankly, God never made. I want you to hear this.

God has promised you that he will be with you, that he loves you, that he died for you, that he has eternity in store for you, that he will give you your needs. We just read ask, seek, knock. This is who God is. Yes. But guess what else?

In John 16, Jesus promises us trials. In fact, he tells his disciples, hey, if they're calling me Beelzebub, what do you think they're going to call you? There will be trials, there will be mountains. Sure, in Christ Jesus. There will be mountaintops Experiences, there will be valleys too.

Paul says In Romans, chapter 5 that the pathway to maturity is suffering. Ew. I'm so happy I came to church today to find out that walking in Christ Jesus might mean things aren't always hunky dory. Sorry. The truth is better than a lie, though.

To find out that, guess what? Christ wants to teach you so much on the mountain and maybe even more so in the valley. And some of you have experienced this, you know, there was stuff you could not learn until you hit rock bottom. And God allowed that so that you would know him more. The prosperity gospel is a clear false teaching of our day.

There's another one that people don't talk about a lot, but it goes way back, back in the day, in the early centuries of the early Church fathers. They called it antinomianism, you might call it now something like hyper grace. Here's how this one teaches. Because of grace, repentance and obedience and holy living really aren't necessary because grace abounds. Here's the thing, though.

True grace, instead of excusing sin, is empowers holiness. That's what true grace is. True grace looks at what Christ has done and said, I want to live for you. I didn't deserve this. I didn't earn it.

And you gave it freely. It makes me want to live for you. That's what grace should do. Titus 2 speaks to this, that grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness. This is the fire insurance Christianity.

I've done enough. I've said the prayer and I'm good to go.

Well, you're living the rest of your life apart from the Spirit of God. He has got a far, far better path for you, far better for the fruit of the Spirit, the joy, the peace, the patience. You want to experience that walk in faith, walk in Christ Jesus. Here's a third one. And if I haven't made you mad yet, I probably will do it now.

We call this progressive Christianity. Underneath this. This sounds really good. If you talk to people in this camp, they always sound way more compassionate than I'm about to sound. They're going to sound way more loving and way more merciful and way more gracious.

They're also going to feed a bag of lies. They're going to say underneath this, they're going to be believing and saying something like this, that, that the Bible in certain areas is outdated. It meant that. Sure, Jonathan, it meant that in the first century, but it doesn't mean that in the 21st. You have to do that in order to go down the path of progressive Christianity, you have to say that in certain areas, like sexuality, like judgment, like sin, the Bible is kind of outdated on these things.

I want to offer another stance, that perhaps God's word is eternal, not evolving.

Can you buy that? That's what the Bible says about itself. All scripture is God breathed It's not evolving, it's eternal. And it applies now as well as it did then, if not better. Because maybe some of the stuff, the prophets in Christ, they're coming to fruition now and they're making a lot more sense.

False teachers, they sound compassionate, but they compromise truth for cultural acceptance.

We need to stand firm on some of these issues. What does God say about the identity of human beings? And it doesn't wait very long to tell us that God made them male and female. In fact, it says it real early in the book and it doesn't deviate from ends there. Guess who created marriage?

Not us. God. The first marriage. Really early in the book.

We don't get to determine who, who we are. We don't get to determine marriage. God's word is eternal, not evolving. Alright, that's just three of seven. Here's number four.

Christianity is not a self help Christianity. Some have called this moralistic therapeutic deism. That sounds cool, right? Moralistic therapeutic deism. This is the idea that God exists simply to help you feel better, be nice and live your best life.

Now that sounds great. I kind of like the way that sounds. It's just not totally true. Here's the problem. A false gospel will always comfort the flesh, but the true gospel will crucify it.

A false gospel makes you feel real comfy, everything's going well. The real gospel, Jesus says, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. I want you to look more like Jesus today than you did yesterday. That's the goal of God for your life. Not to say you're okay, all's well.

No, it's to comfort you in spite of the fact that your world's a mess. To go ahead and tell you, hey, there's some things in here you need to give over to God and he will help you through them and you will be better on the other side. But don't be dishonest and say it's okay that I have these cravings, these temptations. It's okay that I'm alcoholic. It's okay that I'm a gambler.

It's okay that I live promiscuously. No, no, no. The Bible says that that stuff's not okay. But guess what? I loved you and died for you in spite of these things.

And I have a better way. I have a better future. The fifth kind of resolves a little bit of the tension because you're already starting to feel it, is that we don't live under a legalistic faith either. A performance based religion. Some Christians fall prey to this.

That God's love must be earned by strict obedience and rituals and in human effort. That religion needs to build a ladder to God. But the Gospel says that Jesus came down that ladder.

Salvation is by grace, through faith, not works. That's what Paul says. This is a wild balance, isn't it? This is a wild, paradoxical balance. Yes.

I come honestly to the cross of Christ and say, I am a mess and I am not enough and I can't earn this. God show up and lead me. That is The Christian Walk. 6th. And this is where maybe I've survived you so far.

You're going to really think, man, this sounds really judgy. I thought Jesus said don't judge. This sounds so judgy. Well, there have been false prophets all throughout human history, and we've got a lot of them that are pretty stinking modern. There's some false prophets who claim special revelation.

We when people come to you saying, God told me, be a little leery because God told you here, he did it a long time ago. I don't need a whole lot of new special revelation. And normally this ends in some very unverifiable, contradictory kind of prophecies. The drink, the Kool Aid kind of prophecies. You don't want to be a part of that mess.

People died in that particular one, the Waco kind of stuff. I don't want to be involved. I don't know about you. There's some wild stuff, but that's just the big headliner. That stuff's kind of easy to avoid.

You go, man, these people are nuts. I can't believe they. But then there's the wolves in sheep's clothing. They come looking like they're wearing the teen jersey and they kind of look like they are on the Christian team. True prophets will always exist to exalt Christ and align with Scripture.

The false ones will exalt themselves. There have been some pretty modern ones. Like when I say modern, they've happened in the 1800s, 1900s. Like in the scheme of Christianity, we've got some extremely large world religions that have come from false prophets who claimed special revelation. I say this with grace and with compassion.

We are next door to one of those false prophecies. There was a man some hundred years ago named Charles Russell who claimed, claimed to have special revelation from God. Claimed to be a scholar in Greek. In fact, he's one of the rare cases in American history where they took him to court and found out that God knows nothing about Greek. Didn't Even know some of the base lettering of the language, but claimed to have the correct translation of the New Testament.

You may have seen this translation before. It was at the time known as the Watchtower. You ever interacted with a watchtower? You ever had some people come to your door saying, hey, you need to read this and come hang out? The Jehovah's Witnesses, they come initially from a false prophet based on a false translation that, guess what, denies the sonship of Christ and the resurrection.

They are not our brothers in Christ. They are the mission field.

So we shouldn't look at them with judgment. No, that's not what the Bible's teaching. But with discernment and say, these are people that need to hear the truth, truth of Christ Jesus, because they've believed a lie. There's a whole lot of really nice people walking around our city, and sometimes they're riding two by two and they both look the same, and they got white shirts on and black ties and they're riding two by two and they'll come to your house and talk to you about the Book of Mormon. You know what they don't want to talk about is Joseph Smith, the original false prophet.

And I don't blame them. Their original tenets are based on a guy who claimed to be a prophet based on the book of Genesis, chapter 50, in a verse that doesn't exist. And he says, well, that verse was cut out and the only person who knows about it is me. So you've got this prophet who says, this verse is about me and that verse doesn't exist, but it's about me. You go, what's going on here?

And I found golden tablets and I heard from a prophet, and only three people ever saw that. And.

And now you have an entire huge world religion based on what was initially a false prophet who claimed special revelation. This sounds really judgy, I get that, but I'm trying to warn you, Church. I want you to understand, to be spiritually discerning, that not everybody has your best interest in mind. Here's a man that I would claim wanted to marry a whole lot of women and wanted to live a wild life. And so he created a religion.

That's my opinion of it. You do the study for yourself. And here's a really famous false prophecy. And then I've got to keep going because I'm having way too much fun here.

This one you hear a lot now, and I'm not even sure it goes to any particular world religion, but all paths lead to God. A denial of Christ's exclusivity. When Christ says, I'm the way, the truth and the life, he doesn't mean it. All paths lead to God. Jesus is a way.

Not the way. False prophets will often make the narrow gate wider. John 14:6 though, says otherwise. Either you believe that or you don't. But certainly don't say that Christianity fits into that mold.

Christianity is either all true or it's completely a lie. It doesn't get to fit in the universal world religion, religions, because Christ says, I am it.

In Christ we can discern this. I hope this was helpful to you. It might have shocked you. It's not normally what I do, but I just felt compelled in my spirit. Hey, if I'm going to talk about false teachings, let's talk about a few.

Here's the third, and I've got to go quickly through it. We can recognize their end. To avoid the destruction, Jesus finishes with a very sobering warning. In verse 19, he says, those false prophets, you'll know them by their fruit and guess what's going to happen. They will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

This is, I believe, both present and future warning. I bet you can yourself think of some situations that you already know of where a person was found to be a liar, that eventually their fruit became public in such a way that the outcome was they were completely cast out. Now, what's wild is some of these people have made prophecies about things that were to happen and they didn't happen and people still followed it. I don't totally understand how that's possible, but it happens a lot. Several of the world religions I was just speaking of, these prophets made prophecies about things that straight up didn't happen and people still follow them.

But in this case there will be situations where if you stand back and say, I'm not sure about this, I'm not sure about what I'm being taught, the fruits are not looking good. That sometimes in your lifetime you will see the fall, but if not, it will be later. It means either a present cut down or a eschatological and end times cut down. I think it means. I think Christ means both.

He intends both by this thrown into the fire seems very end times kind of thing. In fact, DA Carson says this is the destruction that Christ was speaking of just previously. This is the wide gate, the eschatological ruin, the final rejection by God and exclusion from his presence, that eventually, if not even presently, they will be cut down and thrown out. John the Baptist in fact makes A very similar statement. Perhaps the people listening to Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount would go, interesting.

I've heard this recently. Matthew, chapter 3. John the Baptist says, even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. He's talking about Israel.

And guess what? It. It wasn't long before the temple was destroyed and Rome destroyed and sieged the city. It wasn't long, a mere 30 years later. This is perhaps what he's speaking of.

Peter says false teachers will face judgment and their heresies will lead others to similar destruction. So don't get in that camp. Second Peter 2. It says there were also false prophets in Israel. Just as there will be false teachers among you.

They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who brought them, who bought them, in fact, in this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. In their greed, they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction was.

Will not be delayed. Church what is Christ teaching you in this? He's teaching you to be discerning, not to be judgmental. He said, judge not, lest you come under that same kind of judgment. But you ought to be wise, you ought to be discerning.

Look at the fruits. Don't be gullible, perhaps, is what what he's saying. Don't just be tossed to and from, as Paul says, by every new thing you hear. Check it, Step back. Is this of God?

Does this line up with the word of God? Does this lead me towards righteous living or towards selfishness? There's a lot of diagnostic questions you can ask. Is this bearing the righteous fruit of God? In my life, I've noticed something that's been happening in my backyard for, like, the last several years.

When I first moved to my house, it had this wild holly all down my back fence line, and there was a vine running all through it, choking it out. And so when I first moved, there was a whole lot of yard work to do, and I got that vine pretty much out of there, and the holly started to look pretty good, right? I was starting to get those little red fruits, if you will, off that thing. The. The leaves on that thing are evil.

I'll just say that holly has some evil leaves. But it was meant to kind of be a break between my neighbors and I, to Kind of, you know, so we weren't in each other's backyards. And whoever developed that, I mean, it was a good idea. So it was starting to look good. I got the vine out of there that was choking it, and the leaves were coming back.

Starting to see some of those red hollies. It's pretty, you know, kind of almost Christmasy in a way. You look at it and then one day, I don't even think we'd had a storm or anything. I look out in my backyard, and one of them is just laying on the ground, still covered in green leaves and red berries. And I go out there and look at it, and the whole inside of it's completely empty.

Something had just straight up cored the thing out. I was like, that's super strange. Guess what's been happening over these last few years. One by one. Just every once in a while, they say, I'm done.

Every once in a while, they just go and lay over in my backyard full of green leaves. What is going on here? I couldn't help but think about how that's been occurring and how that looks in life. I thought I'd fix this. I thought this was well.

But there was an internal, deep problem that started to rear its ugly head over time.

This made me think so much this week about this sermon. Like, it looked fine. I thought I did good enough. But when it comes to spiritual things, I need to examine the fruit. I need to look more closely.

Those warning signs were there. There were woodpeckers rolling up in there, absolutely doing, like, lines on this thing. Why are they doing that? Well, that's because there was a ton of bugs in. Was getting cored out.

I didn't notice the signs. Inspect the fruit. Why should I do this, Christ? First of all, because our Lord and Savior Jesus said so beware. But also, I don't want to be a part of it.

I don't know about you, church. I don't want to be a part of the covenant, off and thrown out. I'm not interested in being a part of that. I want to be a part of the group of people who find and walk the narrow path that in Christ Jesus, I would say, whatever it is you want from me, I am that and nothing more, nothing less. I want what you want, period.

And I pray that over you too, my friend, that in Christ Jesus we can exercise a spirit spiritual discernment that recognizes the end and avoids destruction, either in this life or the next. There may be things you choose to do, even as a Christian Believer that will lead your life astray, not eternally, but in this life. And that is not the design that Christ has for you. He has a better plan. So I ask you this as we close.

Are you spiritually discerning, seeing the truth, spending ample time with the Lord Jesus so that you can spot the counterfeit, inspecting the fruit of what is being fed into your life at all times, going, hmm, maybe there's a couple people I need to unfollow. Let's just be honest about that. There's a couple things, man, this is making me angry. This is making me think differently about my marriage. This is making me think differently about my children.

This is making me think I'm not enough. Like, there's stuff. We're scrolling, going, I guess I'm not living it up enough. I don't have a yacht rolling into somewhere in Greece, right? Maybe there's some stuff.

Maybe, you know what, For a season, this right here, I'm just going to put it out of my life because for some reason I'm doing none of this and I'm doing all of this. Let's reverse order and see what happens. Are you discerning, expecting the fruit and avoiding these terrible ends? Don't be a passive follower. Be a discerning citizen of the kingdom of God.

Stay close to the shepherd. Get to know his voice, trust his word and in doubt. Let's inspect the fruit. All right, church, let's pray together now. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that first of all, you did all of the work necessary for us to be set free to find and know the narrow gate and its path, that you've done that already for us.

God, we thank you so dearly for that, that we don't have to be afraid of this, verse 19. That in Christ Jesus we don't have to fear that. Rather we should look at that and go, I want to avoid being any part of that. That destruction, eternal destruction is not in store for those in Christ Jesus. It is not.

Dear friend, maybe you came today and you don't know this Savior. You've heard of him, but you've not made him your Lord and Savior. You've not made the decision that I am one of his sons, one of his daughters. You've not made that call. This is the time to do it.

There's no reason to wait even another minute when you feel the spirit of God in your life saying, hey, come and believe and know and trust so that you can walk the narrow gate and on the narrow path and you would know the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. That you would experience this in your life. You want this today? It's time to say yes to the master. If that's you, my dear friend, that's how you showed up today.

And you feel called of the Holy Spirit, of God on your life. It's very simple. We are called to make a confession of faith. Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter 10. He says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

It begins with a confession and a commitment. If that's you, my friend, today, would you pray simply, simply this with me? Jesus, I believe you are my Lord and my Savior. You died on the cross for my sin, my shame, my guilt. I lay it all at your feet.

Now, Lord Jesus, I believe you're in charge. You are king of all creation, but certainly of my life. I'm asking you now, Lord, Lord, help guide me. I've been on many paths. The broad way is how you say it, Jesus, but I've been down a lot of different trails.

I want to walk with you now. Show me. Be the light unto my feet. As the psalmist writes, on the narrow path and God, I believe that you raised Christ Jesus from the dead and his death, death and resurrection gives me such faith and such hope. Lord Jesus, guide me.

Dear friend, if you prayed that prayer with me just now, welcome to the family of God and we're very thankful for you. We're thankful that God has moved and stirred in your life in such a way that you would join Team Jesus and be on the narrow path that leads to life and not the broad path that leads to destruction. And we're praying similarly with you all believers in the room. Lord, guide us on the narrow path. Help us to not be tossed on either side of this balance beam by every wind of doctrine.

That we would stay on this narrow path, knowing the truth and letting nothing else interfere with the truth of Jesus word and the righteousness that follows. Lord Jesus, be with your people this week. I pray. Give them boldness and favor in their faith. Help them to not be discouraged, but also to be encouraged in your word.

I pray for those people in the room who have no habit of knowing your voice, no habit of being with the Good shepherd, that that would change today, that even before the day is out they would spend time with you in your word and in prayer to you that they would start tomorrow this way. I pray for your people, God, that they would get to know your voice and that you would speak and do the part only you can do. We pray all this to you now, boldly, in Jesus name, amen.