INJ
Matthew 7:15-23 | “Wolves with Bad Fruit”
The 8th Sunday after the Feast of Trinity | 10 August 2014
Dear Saints,
Jesus puts two pictures in front of us this morning to warn and teach us.
The first picture is of a wolf, a ravenous, hungry, blood-thirsty wolf that is dressed up like a harmless, gentle, and peaceful sheep. In this picture you are a sheep in a flock, eating, enjoying the day, as this wolf creeps up behind you, unnoticed, to attack you, kill you, and eat you. This, says Jesus, is what the false prophets are like. They seem perfectly harmless on the outside, but they are only waiting to devour you whole.
The more clearly we see the picture, this wolf with bloody teeth and hungry eyes and the patient claws grabbing the dirt and creeping closer and closer to you, all the while draped in the friendly lifeless sheepskin, the better idea we’ll have about what Jesus is saying. False teachers don’t look like false teachers. False prophets are not obvious. The devil does not come with a sign around his neck that says, “Look out, I’m the devil.”
In fact, St. Paul warns us that the devil comes disguised as an angel of light.
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
Now, in the second picture Jesus gives, the picture of the orchard, He will give instructions regarding discerning the false teachers from the true, but here, with the wolf disguised with sheepskin, Jesus is warning us that false teaching is dangerous. Here the sin is not the sin of false teaching, or even this sin of believing false doctrine, although these are both sins. The sin is indifference, not caring, not knowing the danger, not being on the lookout.
Whenever the Scriptures tell us to “beware” it is always talking about false doctrine, and this is because false teaching is the most dangerous thing in all the world. There are a lot of dangerous things that can kill your body, but false teaching can damn your soul. So we, as Jesus commanded, pay attention to the teaching, we look out for false doctrine, and we talk about it, we preach and teach against it. This is sometimes difficult and trying work. It is no fun (at least it shouldn’t be) calling out people for teaching false doctrine, and now the devil comes along and says, “Why are you so negative, so critical. That’s not a loving spirit. We should all get along.”
We see this outside the church with our cultural creed of tolerance. We see it inside the church in a number of places: the liberal churches have, for years, been part of an ecumenical movement that, at its root, says theological differences don’t matter in regard to church unity, ad churches are joining up with each other even though they have different teachings. In the Roman church they’ll will say that differences of theology are not too important as long as there is an allegiance to the pope. The conservative evangelical churches minimize the role of teaching with clichés like “Deeds, not creeds.” And this temptation comes to us as well, when we see all the different types of churches, all the different things that are taught in the name of Jesus, when we talk to our friends who are Methodist and family members who are Catholic, we are tempted to say that all the differences in theology are differences in mans’ opinion, “Who knows what right or wrong?” These are all differences of interpretation. Have you heard that? Have you said that? Yes, you have. I’ve heard you.
What is behind this thinking is, at least, a denial of the clarity of the Scriptures, the thought that we cannot be sure about what the Bible says. “After all, if the Bible were clear then there would not be so many different denominations.” So the thinking goes. And you can see the danger: if we can’t be sure of what is true, we also cannot be sure of what is false. And if we don’t know the difference between the true and the false, how are we to beware of false prophets? Now the entire enterprise of looking out for the false prophets is cancelled before it even starts.
If you can’t tell the difference between the sheep and the wolf in sheepskin, why trouble with being on guard? But this is a recipe for disaster. Jesus, then, calls us all to a life of learning and knowing the Scriptures, a life of theological diligence, of discerning truth from error, and a being alert for false and dangerous teaching. Studying theology and looking out for false teachers is not only the pastors’ job, it belongs to all the Lord’s people. We are a congregation of theologians.
Now, how is this detection accomplished? For this Jesus gives us a second picture: an orchard full of fruit trees. Some of the trees and fruit are good, and some are bad, and you are walking through this orchard picking the good fruit and avoid the bad.
We know that the fruit of the teacher is not his works. Remember, the false teacher doesn’t look like a wolf, but like a sheep. They do many marvelous works in the name of Jesus. Outwardly they are marked with an obedience to the law. Their fruit is their teaching.
The rotten fruit is the teaching of ourselves, of salvation by our own efforts. It is a twisting of Scripture that make it about me instead of Jesus, which steals glory from God and takes comfort from us. You can have the cleanest glass of water, and you add a little dirt, and now you have mud. What would you think if I gave you a glass of wine, and you asked, “Is it just wine?” and I said, “Sure, just wine, with a tiny little bit of poison in there.” Well, that’s not wine, it’s poison. The same thing happens with law and Gospel. The pure Gospel, with just a little bit of Law or works mixed in is no longer the Gospel. The false teaching is a confusion of Law and Gospel, of a mixture of it, which has me earning God’s grace or doing something to access it. There are a million different false teachings, but they all have this in common: their end is not repentance and faith; their end is not the objective comfort of the Gospel.
The good fruit is the teaching of the Scriptures, Law and Gospel rightly divided. The good fruit is the teaching of repentance, the preaching of the Law that brings contrition, and the preaching of the Gospel which brings faith. The good fruit is the teaching of Christ Jesus, His life, His teaching, His death and resurrection for us, and His ascension, His forgiveness, His continued love and mercy for His church. The good fruit gives all glory to God and all comfort to terrified consciences. In the true teacher we hear the voice of Jesus, His grace, His kindness, His promises, His absolution.
It is no accident that Jesus, in His teaching us, puts us back into a garden. It was a garden where humanity first believed false doctrine and ate the fruit that leads to death. But now we have the fruit of the Gospel, the good fruit that gives eternal life, and this we eat, this we believe, this we trust. And this, dear saints, is why true and false doctrine matters. Jesus, with these words, is not handing us over to a critical and loveless spirit that is always grumping around. He is handing us over to life, to a faith that clings to His promises in good times and bad. He hands us over to the comfort and certainty of His truth, which is our hope and our life and our comfort and our peace.
In this we rejoice. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
Hope Lutheran Church | Aurora, CO
Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
