Fact: We live in a culture obsessed with “being heard.”
Fact: People want to “be heard” because they feel like they have something to say.
Fact: In the obsession of “being heard,” many have not considered if they have something worth saying.
Fact: Everyone has something worth saying, but they don’t always get around to saying it.
Fact: In a culture filled with too many voices – news corporations, talk shows, the film industry, record labels, Facebook, Twitter, etc. – it is difficult to discern between someone who is saying something worth saying and someone who isn’t.
Fact: Words are only words. But actions can say what words cannot.
Fact: There are those whose desire to “be heard” is greater than their desire to be worthy of “being heard.” They will speak in half-truths. They will say things that we want to hear. They will try to change the way that you live (but not for the better). In the Christian church, we call them false prophets.
One of Jesus’ main concerns during his ministry on earth was to warn his followers that there would be some among them who would attempt to deceive to the rest. On the outside, they would seem like just another disciple of Jesus. They would talk, act and look like one of his servants, like a harmless sheep in a pasture following the Good Shepherd. But in reality, they would be much worse.
Jesus gave this warning to his audience in Matthew 7:15-20:
15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
During the time in which the book of Matthew was written, a false prophet was a person who would enter the Christian assembly during a time of worship. While the community was worshipping, he would go into a trance and start shouting aloud what he believed God was “saying” to him. He would make a show of it, perhaps thrashing around like an animal or speaking in a haunting voice. But it was just that. A show.
Now some of these false prophets would behave in this way in order to be noticed or admired. Others would use it as a means to make money, selling the “words of God” for profit. But the worst of them would do it to attract followers. They positioned their actions and planned their words carefully to entice others to follow them for their own benefit. They would do it to gain power over others. In the Greek, to be “false” means to “lie.” They were liars.
Now, there are false prophets in existence today. They have books and television shows and movies and record deals and blogs. And they have hordes of followers and fans, buying their books, watching their shows and reading their blogs. They cannot get enough of what these prophets say.
Some of these “prophets” even claim Jesus as their Lord, even though they do not truly follow Him. But how can we detect these false prophets in today’s world?
Before I started writing this post, I began compiling a list of people and organizations that I considered “false,” those who promote a way of life or a way of thinking opposite to what God purposes for us. There were some televangelists on that list, some preachers, some musical artists, some filmmakers and a popular news network. Soon, however, I realized that this list wasn’t so much composed of people that were necessarily “false” so much as it was a list of people and networks that I didn’t like or with whom I disagreed.
And that got me thinking. How can we really know whether someone is being false or if they’re just wrong? For instance, I disagree rather heavily with the theology of John Calvin. His beliefs, which are today known as “Calvinism,” can be destructive to the church and to the faith of Christians. But that doesn’t make John Calvin a false prophet. That doesn’t mean that used his teachings in order to deceive others and cause them to stumble in their faith. It just means that he’s wrong (at least in my opinion).
So we must be careful to throw out the term “false prophet” at people. And we must also turn the question in on ourselves: Are there moments when I would be considered “false”?
There are three methods to spot a false prophet, and as it so happens, these are also questions we must use to examine ourselves for falseness.
1. Do their actions line up with their teaching? In the text above, Jesus explains this with a metaphor: a diseased tree cannot bear healthy fruit. “Fruit” for Jesus is a symbol for the outcome of a person’s faith: the lives that are changed, the people that are healed, the love that is displayed. So if a person’s life bears much fruit, then their teaching or prophecy is worthy of being heard. But if a Christian does little (or nothing at all) to express God’s love to others in a real and practical way, then why should we listen to them? Their advice comes from inexperience, and their teaching has had no chance to be practiced in the real world. Their words are rotten. And as Jesus teaches us, if the core of a tree is rotten, then the fruit that it produces will be rotten as well.
2. Do they care more about applause than the truth? Paul warns his student Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3 that a time was coming when men and women would no longer be happy with sound doctrine and instead would listen to teachers who would give them what they wanted to hear. That time probably came along time ago, but it is still in full force to this day. In this culture, you can find any opinion you could possibly want either in print, on television or in a sound byte. And because of this, we can be tempted to stick with what we like to hear as opposed to listening to what we should hear.
Beware of those who only say what we want to hear. They seek applause and not the truth. Challenge yourself to encounter someone with a different point of view, especially if you would disagree, and weigh his or her opinions against Scripture to see if they are true. Consider this: In Scripture, prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Jesus often brought words that the audience did not want to hear but should have heard anyway.
3. Are they leaving something out of their message? In Paul’s final sermon to the Ephesian church in Acts 20:27, he declares, “I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” A common method of a false prophet is to preach only part of the Gospel without including the whole of it. They will continually land on one aspect of the teachings of Scripture but either ignore the grander narrative of the Bible or leave out what we might call “the whole will of God.” They will have their pet soapboxes because they cannot speak convincingly about anything else.
As we ask these questions to determine whether or not someone is promoting a false gospel, we must remember to ask these questions of ourselves. Do my actions line up with my speech? Do I merely say what others want to hear or do I say what they should hear (in love)? Am I omitting some part of the Gospel message in my life?
These are essential questions for us to answer, for Jesus has strict words for those who claim to be His followers and yet are false in their faith.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
May we do the will of the Father, then, not only in word and speech but also in action and in truth.
Kyle Welch
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