Believer Beware!

¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”  Matthew 7

There are false prophets among us! Jesus warns us of them. You know if Jesus warns us that they’re here. We don’t like to think of anyone as a false prophet but they’ve been around since the beginning of the church. Many of the New Testament letters were written to combat their false teaching.

To make matters worse, these false prophets want to devour us! Jesus says that “inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” Christians are depicted as sheep in the Bible and wolves have only one use for sheep -- dinner.

Don’t expect to see wolves sitting openly in the pews at church next Sunday. False prophets come “in sheep’s clothing.”  They look just like you and me. However, although they disguise themselves as sheep, they can be identified as wolves. 

Jesus tells us that we can know false prophets by their fruits. What is coming forth from them? We often evaluate on the level of someone being nice, handsome, compelling, funny or charismatic. That’s not how God tells us to evaluate.  It’s by what fruit comes from them.

The Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). I’ve heard it said that the one thing false prophets can’t do is deny their flesh. Putting to death the deeds of the flesh is something we can do only with the Spirit. False prophets don’t have the Spirit, consequently they can’t deny their flesh.

Somewhere in the false prophet’s ministry you’ll see gratification of the flesh. It could be with money as they love to use God’s people to acquire their own wealth. You may see their flesh manifest itself in an inflated ego (pride).  And, yes, one of the most popular, sexual immorality. They don’t just struggle with a particular sin, but use their ministry to feed their flesh. To acquire the money, pander to their pride and to seduce.

The reality may be that you’re not close enough to the false prophet to know whether they are proud or money hungry. So how do you identify a false prophet from afar?  You identify them from their teaching. Know the Bible. That’s what false prophets do, they twist the Word of God. Spend time getting to know the Word better than the one who wants to devour you.  The more time you spend with the Good Shepherd the more easily you will spot a wolf.

Identifying a false prophet is not one of the top five list of subjects we want to hear; but take Jesus’ warning of ravenous wolves seriously and beware!