SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/10/2021 8:45 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “Beware of False Prophets”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
7:15-20
Message of the verses: “15 "Beware of
the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are
ravenous wolves. 16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not
gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 “So
every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 “A good
tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 “Every
tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 “So
then, you will know them by their fruits.”
We
will be looking at a little different SD today as we begin to look at the
section in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about false prophets. We are coming towards the end of Jesus’
wonderful sermon and so this is a very important issue that He brings up for
many true believers have been sucked into the teachings of false prophets, and
many non-believers have also had this happen to them. There is a very popular preacher from Texas
who fits right into the category that Jesus is talking about here named Joel
Osteen. I recently listened to a sermon
by John MacArthur and in that sermon he stated that Joel Osteen is doing the
work of the devil, and I truly believe that.
Many people, believers and non-believers thought Jim Jones was a good
Christian Bible Teacher including Jimmy Carter’s wife, and yet 0ver 900 died in
Jonestown after they drank cyanide poison.
In the passage we are about to look at we will see the warnings coming
from our Lord’s own mouth as He teaches us to “Beware of False Prophets.”
I
am going to quote, first of all from a sermon by John MacArthur, and then from
his commentary to help set the stage for this section in Matthew. The first quote will be a review of what we
have been looking at and then the next will be what we are going to be looking
at.
“ Now,
in climaxing the masterful sermon of our Lord, we face an ultimate
choice, and we saw last week specifically how our Lord draws us to
that choice. Look at verse 13 and 14 for a moment. In
climaxing the sermon, in bringing to focus everything that He has
said, Jesus says this: “Enter in at the narrow gate; for wide is the
gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and
many there be who go in that way. Because narrow is the gate, and
hard is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find
it.” Now, as we saw last time, the Lord brings a choice, forces a
decision. In other words, the response to The Sermon on The Mount is
not to admire it, not to extol its ethical virtue.
“The only permissible response to The Sermon on
The Mount is make a decision, to either go through the narrow gate onto
the narrow way that leads to life, or to go through the wide gate onto the
wide way which leads to destruction. Those are the only two
alternatives there are. You either have the religion of divine
accomplishment, where you recognize your own sinfulness and accept what
Christ has done, or the religion of human achievement, where you
believe you’re good enough. Through the narrow gate, you go on the
merits of Christ. It’s like going through, as we saw last time,
a narrow turnstile, no baggage, which means you can’t carry
yourself, your sin, your own righteousness, nothing.
“You go through alone, you go through
naked, and you go through with great difficulty, agonizing to enter
that gate in the repentance of your sin. On the other hand, to
choose the broad gate you can take your sin, your selfishness, your
self-will, your self-righteousness – it’s a wide gate, it’s a wide way
easily entered, easily traveled. And you make a choice, everyone
makes a choice. You either choose God’s way or man’s way. You
either believe your own human achievement is good enough to attain for you
a place in the kingdom of God, or you know it is not, and in
desperation you cling to Christ. That’s what Jesus was trying to do,
force a decision.
“He portrayed the broad way all through the
sermon, and invariably His portrayal was that the broad way didn’t
make it. They had the wrong view of self, and the wrong view of the
world, and the wrong view of the Word of God, and the wrong view of
morality, and the wrong view of fasting, and the wrong view of
praying, and the wrong view of giving, and the wrong view of
money, and the wrong view of possessions, and the wrong view of other
people. And all of these were the wrong things, and so Jesus
was showing them that going the way of self-righteousness, and the way
that says, “I can do it on my own, I’m good enough on my
own, I’m religious by myself, I don’t need a sacrifice, I don’t have to
recognize my sin.
“I don’t have to be a beggar in
spirit, mourning over sin and hungering for righteousness, I can do
it on my own.” But going that way is going to come up short.
You’re going to have to have a righteousness that exceeds that, and
that’s the narrow way. And so we are faced with a choice, a call for
a decision. The message is not just to be heard, then, and admired,
it demands a response. And clearly our Lord calls for the proper
response, doesn’t He, in verse 13? What does He
say? “Enter in at the narrow gate.” That is the
great call that comes from the heart of our Lord, and throughout the
entire Sermon on the Mount, beloved, that’s what He’s after, that one
statement. Don’t keep going your way, come God’s way.
Strip yourself of your
self-righteousness, your pride, your self-sufficiency, your sin, your
self-will, your own goals, and come God’s way, the narrow gate, narrow
because you go alone, narrow because you can’t carry anything
through, narrow because you come with great difficulty, and narrow
because you have to count the cost of what it’s going to mean to put
yourself under the control of Jesus Christ; very narrow. People say,
“Christians are narrow-minded.” That’s right, very narrow,
totally narrow. And that’s exactly what the Bible says. The
Lord then comes to the invitation, the climax of the message, and He calls
for a decision, a choice.”
I
have to say that there was much more to this review, but I just did not want to
make this SD too long and I think I picked out the things that I wanted to
convey the truths that we have been looking at over the last ten or so
days. Now I will also quote MacArthur
intro to “Beware of False Prophets.”
“After
giving the invitation to ‘enter by the narrow gate,’ to come to God by the only
way He has provided, Jesus warns that not everyone who claims to belong to God
and to speak for Him actually does so.
When we stand at the crossroads of decision, we should remember that the
true way to God is narrow and that the false way is broad; the true way is
difficult and demanding, and the false way is easy and permissive, the true way
has relatively few following in it, and the false way has many.
“Jesus
now says, if effect, ‘As you strive to enter the narrow gate and walk that
narrow way that leads to life, beware of those who would mislead you. Just as there is a misleading gate and a
misleading way, there are also misleading preachers and teachers who point to
that gate and promote that way.’ Just
like the false gate and way; they will claim to show the way to heaven and
life, but they actually show the way to hell and destruction. The false gate has false prophets standing in
front of it who seek to lead people into the false way and hinder them from
entering the true.
“In
the present passage Jesus first gives a warning and then calls us to be
watchful. Just as He described the true
and false ways, He now describes the true and false teachers of those ways.”
The
section in MacArthur’s commentary has just two main points, one word in each of
them: “Warning” and then “Watching.” They each have many sub-points under them
so buckle up as we learn some very important things as we go through these
verses.
2/10/2021 9:23 AM
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