In 2005 Family Radio founder Harold Camping declared in a book that the rapture would occur on May 21, 2011. He came up with this date by taking various passages from the Bible and adding or multiplying the numbers together. When 2011 came, there was a massive media campaign in the United States and around the world. Over 5,000 Judgment Day billboards were erected. Teams went out distributing tracts. People put signs on their cars. Some people emptied out their life savings to buy promotions. Family Radio spent over $100 million dollars.
There were people who quit their jobs, sold their homes, and gave away everything they owned. There was a gathering of over 5,000 Hmong people in Vietnam which included many poor people who sold their belongings so that they could afford to make the trip. In the week before it was one of the top trending searches on Google. I was a vicar in Salem, Oregon at the time, and we had people calling the church because they didn’t know what to do. There were even reports of people committing suicide.
Harold Camping was wrong.
That’s pretty obvious, seeing as how we’re here fifteen years later and there has been no rapture or Judgment Day. First, Camping revised his predictions to October 21, and when that didn’t happen either he was forced to apologize and admit that his critics were right when they had pointed to Jesus’ words, “No one knows the day or the hour.”
This kind of thing has happened many times since Jesus ascended into heaven. Someone claims to know when it is and deceives many people into following him. Maybe he does it because of the way that it gains money or power. Camping sold a lot of books. Other times the person promoting it completely believes it. He’s deceived himself. Camping seemed pretty shocked when his predictions turned out to be wrong.
But this should not have deceived any faithful Christian, because whether it’s made-up predictions about the end of the world or any other false teaching, the words of our Lord Jesus are clear. You need to know that Word of Jesus so that you can watch out for false prophets, so that by their fruit you will recognize them.
Our Gospel for today is from Matthew 7, part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In this sermon Jesus taught many things as he explained the Scriptures to the people. We know from this and from other accounts in the Gospels that people loved listening to Jesus. They compared him to the teachers they were used to listening to and said, “He teaches with authority, not like all of our teachers of the law!”
The sad thing about this is just how bad that teaching was . Jesus is the perfect teacher, and so there’s no surprise that his teaching was great. But the things Jesus was teachign were right from the Old Testament. Fifteen centuries earlier Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 30 that the word of God is not something far away where someone has to climb up to heaven or sail across the sea to find it and figure it out. No, he said, “Instead, the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so you can obey it.”
Why were their teachers so bad? It wasn’t because God’s word was too hard to find. It wasn’t because God’s word was too hard to understand. It was because they had abandoned God’s word for the teachings of men.
This all feels pretty familiar, doesn’t it? Here we are all these years later, and the situation is no different. You could argue that it’s worse. In Jesus’ day the Pharisees argued over what constitutes a lawful divorce, but in our day we’re not arguing about that because we’ve already decided that anything goes. We can hardly even say that men and women are different, much less that we must honor God with our bodies by a pure and decent life, that God established marriage to be a lifelong union between one man and one woman, that wives should submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ, and that husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the church. It’s not just our society. How many churches have set themselves against these very clear teachings of God?
That’s why Jesus warned the people who were there. That’s why he warns us. He said
Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. You do not gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do you? 17So then, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. 19Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.
One thing that Jesus emphasizes here is that false teaching is dangerous. That’s easy enough to see when you look at something like Harold Camping’s predictions of the end of the world. People committed suicide because of this? People gave awaay all of their possesions and were left with nothing? What would you even do when the next day rolled around and none of his predictions happened the way he said?
But false teachings don’t have to be that kind of thing for them to be dangerous. Even things that might seem to be very small, if they are opposed to what God says, are like deadly poison for our souls. They come to you in sheep’s clothing. Those teachers and their teachings don’t seem so bad. They’re friendly, even. But Jesus says, “By their fruit you will recognize them.”
What does that mean? First of all, let’s note that Christ instructs and even commands Christians to examine their teachers. C.F.W. Walther said that the sheep are to judge the shepherds. Luke describes the men of Berea as “noble-minded” when they didn’t simply accept Paul at his word, but examined the Scriptures to see if what he said was true.
How are you going to examine and judge your teachers? You can’t judge them by their face. That’s probably a good thing. You must judge them by their fruit. And what is that? In other places in Scripture “fruit” describes the good works that result from faith. And it’s true that a Christian teacher should live in accordance with what he teaches. But that is not primarily what fruit refers to here. After all, the Pharisees filled their lives with many outward good works, and these were some of the teachers that Jesus was warning the people about.
Since Jesus is talking about false prophets, the fruit he is speaking of is their prophecy, their teaching and its effects. Jesus taught with authority because what he taught was the Word of the Lord. By their fruit you will recognize them. Scripture is our rule and norm. Are they teaching Scripture or are they not? Are their words the words of the Lord, or are they not?
It is a terrible tragedy and a wicked thing that today so few will point to the Word of God with all certainty and say, “Your Word is truth.” You should never settle for such uncertainty. You should never allow the pure word of God to be replaced by the opinions of men. I know that what I preach is the word of Christ. I know that by this word you are saved.
You need to judge your teachers and their message because Judgment Day is coming and on that day God will judge. Jesus said,
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’
For Harold Camping’s sake I hope he truly repented of his sin. Many people were harmed when he set himself against Jesus and said, “No, I do know the day and the hour.” Many false teachers don’t repent of their teaching, no many how many souls they have harmed. They may have even deceived themselves, but they cannot deceive Jesus. Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light, and no miracle done in Jesus’ name truly glorifies him if it drives people away from the Gospel of our salvation.
Jesus’ warning here in Matthew 7 describes the spiritual warfare that we are engaged in. We can easily take God’s word for granted. We can easily become apathetic like Pontius Pilate, asking, “What is truth?” We can easily be deceived by false teachers who are like wolves in sheep’s clothing. But Jesus is also making a promise to you here. By their fruit you will recognize them. And this is not because you are so wise and discerning. No, in fact the wise philosopher needs to become as a fool and the adult needs to become like a child. We all need to humble ourselves before God and before his holy Word.
And there in that word we will find the truth of the love of our God and Savior. We will see that love in action in the things he has done for us, paying for our sins by his own death and resurrection, giving us the promise of everlasting life. We will hear about his work for us in our lives, how he has chosen us, how he has brought us from the darkness of unbelief to the light of faith, how he has given us the church with its pastors and teachers to instruct and encourage us, how he has worked in us, in our hearts and in our minds to know him. “My sheep know my voice,” he says.
There are false teachers and false teachings all around, like wolves in sheep’s clothing. Watch out for them, but don’t fear them. Instead, know the voice of your Savior. Study his word. Grow in your knowledge of his truth. And he will keep you safe from the Devil’s lies and firm in the faith, until he brings you to life everlasting.
Amen.
— Pastor Seth Georgson