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Sermon for Trinity 8
Romans 8:12-17 + Matthew 7:15-23
For the last several weeks, the Sunday Gospels have been showing us some of the tasks we are to be performing on a regular basis as forgiven children of God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus highlights a task that a lot of Christians have been shirking, neglecting, failing to do. It’s the task of testing the preachers who claim to speak for Christ.
As I said, many Christians fail to do this. If they grow up in a certain church, in a certain “tradition,” they never question it, never actually test their preachers, because they would never consider leaving their family church. Others celebrate the diversity of doctrines that their preachers embrace. Others look for a church that’s going to tell them what they want to hear, or that gives them the kind of worship “experience” they’re looking for. They don’t test the teaching. Instead, they test the format, the atmosphere, the music. But the most important factor, by far, in choosing a church is the doctrine that is taught and practiced in that church, regardless of any external trappings. Why is it so important? Because of whose doctrine it is. It’s Christ’s doctrine, Christ’s teaching. And if we love Him, then we must also love what He teaches—and that means everything He teaches.
Of course, if you’re hearing the Word of Christ directly from the mouth of Christ, then you don’t have to worry about testing the preacher, do you? But that’s not the situation we find ourselves in. Jesus never intended to stay on earth and preach and teach until the end of time. It was always His intention to call His sheep and to feed His sheep through the preaching and teaching of ministers whom He would send to preach and teach in His name until He comes again. But He also knew that many, many preachers would come along, claiming to speak for Christ, who would go out into the world spreading lies in His name. And so He issues this stern warning to His disciples, as one of the most basic tasks Christians are to be doing, regularly: Watch out for false prophets.
Why? Because they won’t come to you with a big sign on their chest saying, “False prophet.” On the contrary, they will claim that they’re speaking to you in Jesus’ name, that they’re telling you the truth about God, about Jesus, about what it means to be a Christian. That’s what it means to come in “sheep’s clothing”—innocent, harmless, likeable, believable, looking like a true follower of Jesus. But inwardly they are ravenous wolves. If they get you to believe lies about yourself, lies about God and His Word, lies about how anyone can be saved from death and from eternal condemnation, then they have devoured you. They have robbed you of salvation. They have led you to believe in a fake Jesus, and a fake Jesus can’t save anyone.
How do you watch out for them? You test them. You don’t test them based on how they look, or by how educated they are by worldly standards, or by their personality, their charisma, or their sense of humor. You don’t test them by the mere fact that they claim Jesus as Lord or wave a Bible around. You test them by examining their “fruits.” By their fruits you will know them, Jesus says. Now, two things are included in a preacher’s fruits: his doctrine, and his life. In other words, whether he does the will of my Father in heaven in what he teaches and in how he lives.
How do you test a preacher’s doctrine? How do you “test the spirits,” as St. John writes in chapter 4 of his first epistle, “whether they are of God”? Well, there’s only one way. You have to do as the Bereans did in Acts 17 when the apostle Paul came to them claiming to speak for God. What did they do? They “searched the Scriptures” to find out if what Paul was saying was true. They only had the Old Testament Scriptures at that time. You now also have the New Testament Scriptures. You have to use them in order to do what Jesus tells you here. You have to know your Bible, study your Bible. There’s no way around it. It’s the only infallible source of truth—unchanging, unwavering truth, the inspired Word of God that remains forever.
It’s a big book, but not overly big. It’s knowable. We’ve also broken down its teachings and summarized them in six chief parts, as you know if you’re familiar with Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, which is tremendously helpful for testing a Christian preacher’s doctrine.
For example, does his doctrine line up with the Ten Commandments? Does he point you to the Lord God alone as the only God and Savior, to worship Him alone, to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things? Does he teach you to honor God’s name and God’s Word? To honor your parents and those in authority over you? To guard your neighbor’s life, including the lives of the children waiting to be born? Does he teach you to honor marriage—the lifelong union between one man and one woman—to keep the marriage bed pure, and to avoid all sexual immorality, including homosexuality? Does he teach you not to steal, not to give false testimony against your neighbor, not to covet what your neighbor has, but to be content with what God has given you? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.
Does his doctrine line up with the Apostles’ Creed? Does he teach that the one God, who is three Persons, created all things in six days by His almighty Word? Does he teach that Christ is true God from eternity, and true Man, born of the virgin Mary? Does he teach that Christ has redeemed mankind from sin, death, and the power of the devil with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death? Does he teach that Christ rose bodily from the dead on the third day and lives and rules eternally at the right hand of God, and will return on the last day (and not before!) to raise all the dead and to give eternal life to all who have believed in Him? Does he teach that the Spirit of God is the one who, through the preaching of the Gospel, calls poor sinners from every race, tribe, language, and people, who brings people to faith through the message that is preached, and justifies them by faith alone in Christ and in no other way, that it is the Spirit who gathers His Church and preserves it through the means of grace—through preaching and the Sacraments? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.
Does a preacher’s doctrine line up with the Lord’s Prayer, teaching you to pray to no one in heaven except for our Father in heaven, how to pray with dignity and with reverence, to seek the glory of God’s name and His kingdom, and to look to Him as the Provider of all you need, from daily bread, to the forgiveness of sins, to strength to resist temptation, to deliverance from all evil? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.
Does a preacher’s doctrine line up with the Bible’s teaching of Holy Baptism, that it’s intended for “all nations,” including little children, that it is a water of life, rich in grace, and a washing of rebirth in the Holy Spirit, that it works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.
Does a preacher’s doctrine line up with the Bible’s teaching about the office of the holy ministry? Does he teach that Christ calls men (and not women), through the call of the Church, to be His ministers, to use the keys of the kingdom of heaven in His name, to forgive sins to the penitent in the stead of Christ and to deny forgiveness to the impenitent, to administer Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in Jesus’ name? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.
Finally, does a preacher’s doctrine line up with the Bible’s teaching about the Sacrament of the Altar? Does he teach that the bread and wine of Holy Communion are the true body and blood of Christ, and that Christ’s body and blood are truly received by all communicants—for the forgiveness of sins to those who believe, and for judgment to those who disbelieve? If yes, good! If not, then that’s bad fruit to watch out for and to avoid.
If a preacher’s fruit—his doctrine—is good, if it lines up with, not just some, but all of these teachings of Scripture, then receive him and believe him. If it’s bad, then “avoid him,” as Paul writes to the Romans in chapter 16.
Then you also have the preacher’s life as part of his fruit, how he behaves, what he does. It’s important, but secondary, because it’s knowing Christ rightly and trusting in Him that will save you, not the preacher’s life. And we know that every preacher is sinful, so don’t waste your time looking for a one who never sins. You won’t find one. But do look for someone who practices what he preaches, which includes repenting when he sins. Test his life with mercy. Test him with love. But do test his life to see if he fulfills the requirements St. Paul set forth for preachers in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus chapter 1. For example, if, while preaching against stealing, he helps himself to a portion of the offerings, that’s obviously bad fruit! If, while preaching against adultery, he becomes an adulterer, that’s bad fruit! If he preaches mercy but doesn’t know how to show mercy himself, that’s bad fruit! If he preaches that the doctrine of Christ is all-important, but is willing to compromise it by remaining in fellowship with false teachers, or by allowing people to commune together at the Lord’s altar without first making sure that their confession of faith lines up entirely with the truth of God’s Word, that’s bad fruit!
In the last part of today’s Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that none of this is a question of a preacher’s sincerity. These false prophets against whom Jesus warns think they’re serving the Lord Christ. They call Him, “Lord! Lord!” And they’re shocked and horrified on the last day when the Lord rejects them, saying, I never knew you. Depart from Me, you evildoers! They thought they knew Jesus, and they preached the Jesus they thought they knew. Some even did miracles, (supposedly) in Jesus’ name. But it turns out they didn’t know Him, and so the Jesus they preached was a false one. They allowed themselves to be led away and deceived by Satan and his doctrines of demons, which they then echoed in their preaching. It was Satan’s power behind their miracles, even as Scripture says that in the last days the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders.
So don’t test a preacher based on his sincerity or even by miracles he performs. Test him by his fruit—by his doctrine and his life. It’s one of the most basic tasks given to Christians by Christ, and it’s why we often include it in our General Prayer. Because you don’t want to arrive at the day of your death or at judgment day and only then find out that you didn’t actually know the real Jesus. He doesn’t want that to happen, either! That’s why He has given you His dependable Word, and His warning, but also His Holy Spirit in the Word to “guide you into all truth,” as He promised His disciples, to guide you and to teach you, and to keep you from being deceived. And when you have tested and found that a Christian preacher is actually bringing you the Word of Christ, then use his ministry. Hear him, believe him, and put the Word of Christ that he preaches into practice. Then you will be, as Jesus says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, like the wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain came down, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. Amen.
