“First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned. And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep” (NRSV).
Matthew 7:15-20 (NRSV): "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.”
This week between Christmas and New Years is an interesting one. It is the week of new resolutions, things that we resolve to do (or not do) during the coming new year. It is, unfortunately, often filled with well-intentioned but empty promises because if we chose to live our lives a certain way last year, it is likely that we will continue in that same behavior unless we confront the sin that motivates us.
We are inclined these days to tolerate easily and judge never and I fear we are not the better for it. There are scriptures that we use to justify our actions, using those scriptures wrongly, I believe, in an effort to escape that same judgment ourselves. In fact, rather than deny that we are a sinful people, we embrace our imperfections as if they are some kind of badge of honor that defends our inability to choose rightly. Rather than being ashamed, we often laud our sinfulness. Paul was adamant that we not do such a thing: “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” (Romans 6:1-2 NRSV).
The first step, I believe, in change is to choose whom we shall follow. There are literally thousands of leaders on our horizon claiming to be followers of Christ. Some have messages of hope, some messages of prosperity, some messages of comfort. We often choose to trust the message, rather than to look at the life of the messenger first. And we need to look instead at the life of the messenger before we choose to believe the message.
Both the apostle Peter and the Lord Jesus gave us warnings about false prophets. Within those warnings are the tell-tale signs of falsehood. We tell the truth of the message by looking at the life of the messenger. Within the life of the false prophet, we will see licentious ways, greed, and a lack of the fruit of the Spirit. Paul gives a list of the “things of the flesh” in Galatians 5 which acts as the inverse of the fruit of the Spirit:
Galatians 5:19-21 (NRSV): “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” We need to look for these things in the lives of our leaders, comparing this list with the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).
Some of you laugh at me because I tend to read (and attend to) only “dead guys,” Christian authors such as Wesley, Tozer, Redpath, Gordon, and Bounds. These men (and godly women as well) have had their lives laid bare by the ravages of time. I know what their lives were like and I know that I can trust their words and their admonitions and will not be led astray. I will say that their advice for living is much harder to embrace, but I also know that it is true and trustworthy. I am willing to follow what they have written because I know they are true prophets of the Lord.
As we make our New Year’s resolutions this year, we need to determine whom we will follow. In 1 Cor. 11:1, Paul tells us: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (NRSV). We all follow someone. This next year let’s make sure that we follow the true prophets of the Lord Jesus!
© 2009 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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