Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew 7:15-23)
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognise them by their fruits.
Niɛrkɛ rɔ̱ kɛ göök ti guäy, tin bëë kä yɛ a ca rɔ̱ moc kɛ tuac rɔɔmä, kä ce̱t rɛydiɛn kɛ jio̱o̱k nyapëc ti näk buɔth kɛ. Bia kɛ ŋa̱c kɛ dɛykiɛn.
Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
At the end of our service each week, we always finish with the “blessing”, which is also called the “benediction”. And many of the older churches, like the Catholic, Orthodox or Anglican church, always have a blessing at the end of the service. And for many people in our own church, this is a favourite part of the service. And so it should be! What could be better than having the blessing of God rest upon your whole life and the week ahead!
In many churches, there are all sorts of blessings that are used. But in the Lutheran Church, it has always been the tradition, if you like, for Communion Services to use the “Aaronic Blessing”. This is the blessing that God gave to Aaron to use in Numbers 6: so it’s called the “Aaronic” blessing. And it’s a particularly powerful one, because it is the only blessing which God commanded someone to use. We say: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you with favour and give you peace. Amen.”
But have a listen to those first words: The Lord bless you and keep you.
There are two sides of a coin here: blessing and keeping. The Lord bless you and the Lord keep you.
“The Lord bless you” means that God gives you everything good. And “the Lord keep you” means that God will protect you from everything bad.
It’s not enough that God just gives us good things. He also needs to protect us from bad things, otherwise we can’t enjoy the good things. It’s a sign of God’s love that he protects us from bad things. It’s not love, if we know something’s dangerous for a person, and we stand back and let them walk into it.
So when we say the blessing we have these two different parts: “The Lord bless you and keep you.”
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When we come to church and we hear the words of Jesus, normally we read about some blessing that Jesus gives. But today we read about Jesus doing some “keeping”. Today Jesus is speaking words of protection, he is keeping us from evil, guarding us from what is bad, so that he can bless us with everything good.
We read: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognise them by their fruits.
We live in very strange times. Many people believe that there is no such thing as truth. This means that people don’t believe that there is such thing as right or wrong. People say: “What’s true for you is not true for me”. But that’s not true! There is such thing as a truth, and Jesus says, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
If we want to know what is true, we also have to know what is not true. We can’t have one without the other. We need to know that God blesses us and that he keeps us.
If nothing is right or wrong, if there is no truth, what do you say about the maniac in Norway recently who shot all those people? What do you say to him? Would you say, “Well, he has his truth, and I have my truth! Who am I to judge him?” Surely, you know that terrorism and opening fire on innocent people is wrong! You can’t possibly believe that there is no such thing as right or wrong here!
What about England? Do you think it’s a good thing that people start running amok around London and Manchester and Birmingham and do whatever they like, setting fire to buildings, robbing and destroying shops and the livelihood of honest, hardworking people? Do you think that’s right?
It’s amazing that these things have happened in our world recently in countries where once upon a time Christianity flourished. And now, according to internet statistics, there are only 27% (if that) of people in England who go to church, and only 5% of Norwegians that go to church. When people, when a society, when a culture cuts itself off from the worship of God, and from the holy sanctuary of God, and from the Word of God, and the sacraments, what are we left with?
We need to make sure that we recognise that these things which have been happening before our eyes on the world stage at the moment are a result of crumbling cultures who no longer believe that there is such thing as truth. If people don’t believe that there is such thing as truth, it is no wonder that these things have happened in Norway and England. We need to take notice of these things and make sure that we take the wisdom of God to heart, and not take it for granted.
We need to make sure that we receive the blessing of God: the words of God, the wisdom of God, the peace of God.
And we need to make sure that we receive the “keeping” of God: we need to be kept from the absence of truth, from the lies of people, and from the violence of people.
Truth leads to peace. Falsehood leads to violence. We need to seek the truth. And love without truth is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
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And so in our reading today, Jesus says:
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognise them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognise them by their fruits.
Today, the first part of our reading here is not talking so much about Christians in general, but it is talking about “teachers” in the church, or “pastors” if you like. It’s talking about “false prophets”. And Jesus tells us to “beware” of them.
And the picture of a false prophet that Jesus gives is a wolf that has put on a sheep’s clothing. The picture is of something that’s pretending to be something else. That’s exactly what a false prophet is: someone who is pretending to be a real prophet, a wolf that is pretending to be a sheep.
Everything that is wrong in the world is an imitation. It’s pretending to be something else.
So we have the one and only true God, our heavenly Father.
The cheap imitation version is an idol – it’s pretending to be a god, but it’s not.
We read in the bible about Jesus Christ – the one and only Jesus Christ.
And Jesus says that there will many false christ’s, and even an Antichrist.
We read about the Holy Spirit. And we also read that the apostle John tells us to “test every spirit, so see whether they are from God.”
We read about apostles. And we read about the false apostles: the people who were pretending to be apostles but weren’t.
We read about prophets. And we read about the false prophets, wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Now Jesus says, “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognise them by their fruits.”
We have to be very clear here – we are not saved by works. This text is not saying to us, that we will be saved because of the good things we do. We are saved because Jesus did the work for us. He died on the cross for us, and God saves us because He is our saviour, not because we save ourselves.
Nevertheless, Jesus commands us to do good things, not to earn salvation, but so that others will see our good works and give glory to the Father.
When it comes to pastors, and leaders – how will we know if what they say is true? We will see it in their fruit. If the tree is good, then people will be happy to come and eat good fruit from it. A lot of the time, we as Christians never see the good fruit that we produce. In Matthew 25, in the story of the sheep and the goats, the sheep say to Jesus: “When did we see you hungry and feed you? When did we see you in prison and visit you?” They didn’t know! They didn’t see their own fruit. But that’s because the fruit is not for them to see, but is for others to see, and to recognise them.
On the other hand, how do you personally recognise whether you are a good tree?
You won’t recognise it from the fruit. Everyone always wants to buy their own brand, you know! How do you know whether your fruit is any good?
Most churches will point people to look at the fruit. This only leads to despair. The Catholics do it – and so no one ever has any certainty of the forgiveness of sin. And then most protestants do it too – they talk about looking to your decision for Jesus: and then everyone starts wondering whether their decision was genuine. That’s what most Christians believe. Or they start talking about predestination: and so people start to think that maybe God hasn’t chosen me for heaven after all. Maybe God chose me ahead of time to go to hell, and there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s what most other Christians believe.
So what’s the answer? How do you know if you are saved or not? How do you know whether or not you are a good tree?
The Lutheran church does not teach that you should look at yourself to find out the answer. We don’t believe that you make a choice to become a Christian by your own free will, and we don’t believe that you are already either chosen ahead of time to go to heaven or hell.
So what do we believe?
Well, my fellow tree, have good a look at your trunk. Have a look at the ground where the roots begin. That’s where you have to look. And what will you see there? Manure -- Heaps and heaps of it -- Piles of the stuff. And as Peter Cundall says, for all you gardening buffs: “That’s your blooming lot!”
God makes you see your sin. If you see your good fruit, beware because it’s probably rotten. If you see your sin, then rejoice. If you can smell the manure at your roots, then rejoice.
Hang on a minute! “That doesn’t make sense”, you say. “Are you saying that I know I’m a Christian because I sin?”
Yes! But more precisely, not because you sin, but because you know you sin. If you know you sin, who told you? The devil? Well, he doesn’t want you to know that! He just wants you to see all your good fruit and an orchard full of the stuff, and he wants you to go to market and sell it all, waxed, polished and full of maggots. The devil wants you to be a hypocrite.
But if you know your sin, then you know that the Holy Spirit must have told you, because who else is interested in making you know that? Often God comes to us as a sheep dressed in wolf’s clothing.
And then, of course, the only thing to do is listen to the words of the forgiveness of sins. And we know that we are forgiven not because we feel forgiven, or because we see our supposedly “good fruit”, but because God’s word says so. Jesus died for you, and that’s it. Those words save us, despite our reason and our judgment. Jesus saves you by his good fruit, not by your rotten old fruit. If you want to produce good fruit, then come and be grafted onto Jesus, be forgiven by him, be baptised by him, receive his body and blood, let him fill you with all the juice and the sap of the Holy Spirit. Let God work in you, both to work and to will for his good pleasure.
Let him save you, because no one else will bother, and you can’t save yourself!
The only way you can be saved, and the only way in this life you can produce any good fruit at all, is to connect yourself up to God’s tap: the word of God and the sacraments. Listen to the absolution, the forgiveness of sins, and receive it as often as you can. Receive baptism if you’re not baptised, and receive the Supper of the Body and Blood of Christ. When we’re baptised, we’re grafted onto Jesus Christ, the living vine and made into a good tree. And when we receive the Lord’s Supper, we receive all the juice from the vine.
You won’t see your good fruit, but others will. That’s their business to recognise it.
But when you recognise your sin, then trust in your Saviour Jesus. Because he is the only good tree, the only true prophet, the only true pastor, and he promises to bless you and to keep you.
Amen.
Lord God, heavenly Father, make us good trees which produce good fruit. Protect us from false teachers, from the wolves in sheep’s clothing, and receive us by your grace into the kingdom of heaven, in Jesus name. Amen.
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