Sermon Transcript

(Matthew 7:15–23)

April 26, 2026

All right. Thank you so much, Marty. Too loud? Yeah. All right. All right, guys, we are in the book of Matthew again today. Please go ahead and turn your Bibles over to Matthew 7. All right. So go ahead and rise with me as we read from Matthew 7. Be on guard against the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravaging wolves.

“Be on guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravaging wolves. You’ll recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit; neither can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So you’ll recognize them by their fruit.

“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. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many mighty miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’” (Matt 7:15–23, CSB)

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

Father in heaven, I come to You now in humility, recognizing that I am not able to do anything apart from You (John 15:5). Our people, in fact, are not even capable of paying attention to the word by their own strength in their flesh. So all of us who are alike, we need You to do a mighty miracle today. We need You to be the one to open our ears and open our eyes. We need You to be the one to prepare Your people here today for Your return, Lord. I am wholly insufficient for this work. I pray that You would look past all of myself and make Yourself known today—for You to be front and center, for You to be glorified, magnified, and worshipped. Please, Lord Jesus. And I pray that You would open our eyes to help us see the saturation of false prophets and teachers in Christian churches today. Help us to be aware of them, to know what they are, who they are, and to be bold enough to call them out. Be with us, Lord Jesus, and help us, protect us from the enemy. In Jesus’ name, amen.

All right. So, Benny Hinn. Anybody ever heard of him? All right. So, Benny Hinn, He is a televangelist who is famous for His crusades where He heals people. He likes to count the empty wheelchairs left on the stage after people come up for their healings. Now, I’m not telling you people can’t be healed, but I do want you to hear this quote from him: “We are facing days of such darkness and such danger, unseen since the days of Adam, and only those who have been faithful in giving to God’s work will be protected financially in those days.” He is telling you how much you give to his ministry will have a direct impact on how much God protects you financially.

Jesse Duplantis, from my home state of Louisiana, He lives in a 35,000 square foot mansion. Now, I think it’s wholly possible for somebody to own a large house and use it for the glory of God. I think it’s possible for God to gift somebody with a large house, okay? So I’m not putting that down. But this is a televangelist; somebody who is making a living.

Jesse Duplantis lives in a 35,000 square foot mansion, and he told Christians that God told him it was time to upgrade his private jet. And he proceeded to ask for $54 million from his followers. He said, “I am confident that if Jesus were here today, He would not be riding on a donkey.”

And then 12 years ago, there was an organization called St. Matthew’s Church. And if you sent them money, they sent out these mailers. They said if you send them money, they would guarantee that your prayers would be answered. And they sent out their mailers with a picture of Jesus’ face on it.

Paula White. Everybody should know who this is because she is our nation’s president’s spiritual advisor. In one service, she manipulated an audience saying that they needed to give $100,000 because kids will die if they are not obedient (v 15). Because God, I guess, is pigeonholed to saving children only based on how much money we give. And then she proceeded to say, “I’m not laying hands on anyone to pray for them until you are obedient.”

Jesus warned us that false teachers would be everywhere in Matthew 24. Everywhere. There would be many of them (Matt 24:11). And as the day of His return draws near, they’re becoming increasingly more abundant. And for us to sniff them out and protect our Church from them, we must study them. Because Jesus says, “Be aware of the false prophets.” So we must study the hearts of those who assume the role of teachers so that we can snuff them out. And that is the main point of today’s sermon: I want you to study the hearts of those who claim to be your teachers. And not just the teachers of this Church, including me. As your shepherd, I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t tell you: keep me accountable. I encourage you to do that for every teacher of this Church. Keep us accountable. And Jesus is going to tell us how to do that.

False prophets will disguise their motives by dressing up as a Christian (v 15, v 21)

So we must study them—our teachers—because we must be aware, as Jesus commands. But before He teaches us how to study them, He tells us what false teachers or prophets are. They are a wolf in sheep’s clothing (v 15).

So, what is a wolf in sheep’s clothing? A wolf is obviously an aggressive meat-eater. They are aggressively hungry, and they do not care about how much you are worth as a human. They merely care about how much worth you can give them. Their main job is to consume, not to give.

But what about the sheep business? I used to think that when He said they are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, that they are merely trying to present themselves as gentle, lowly, humble. But as I have studied this week, I’ve come to realize they use the sheep imagery for a very important reason. You see, in the Gospel of Matthew, sheep are the image of the disciples of Jesus. Remember, at the end of the Gospel, He says that He is going to separate the sheep from the goats—the true disciples of Jesus from those who are not (Matt 25:32–33). Therefore, the false teachers and prophets that Jesus is warning about are those who disguise their motives by dressing up as a Christian.

That is what it means when He says they are a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They will call you brother and sister. They will say that they are your family, that you are theirs. They will use all the right vocabulary. We see this happening already with Jehovah’s Witnesses, with Mormons. They will use the name Jesus. They will use the name Son of God. In fact, Mormons will tell you that they believe that Jesus died and paid for their sins. But having the same thesaurus does not mean you have the same dictionary. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is someone who paints himself as your brother, but they are not.

In fact, the scary part about this in Matthew 7:22 is that it says they are going to be people who are prophesying. They are driving out demons and they are performing many mighty miracles. That should open up everyone’s eyes. The fact that there are people who can deceive us through things that appear to be miracles—if we are not properly studying these leaders, we will truly think that they are from God. But we must remember that even when Moses was holding his staff and he caused it to become a snake, the magicians of Pharaoh were able to copy that miracle (Exod 7:10–12). Satan has the ability to teach his own flock how to do many things that will look like it belongs to God, and it is not (2 Cor 11:14).

That is why we must follow Jesus’ instructions here very carefully. He says in Matthew 24:24:

“For false messiahs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” (Matt 24:24, CSB)

That is God’s chosen Church. He will deceive us if it were possible. While he safeguards us from the enemy’s deception, we have a role to play. Today, he is going to tell us what that is and how to do it.

Inwardly, they only look for ways to feed their greed (v 15c)

This is why it’s so hard to spot a false teacher. You cannot ever assume someone is trustworthy in the Church just because they are a teacher with smooth words and eloquent in speech and passionate, and they rally your blood pressure. Because false prophets and teachers have ulterior motives. Inwardly, they only look for ways to feed their greed.

I’m going to say some Greek words here just so that you can pick up on the similarity. But when Jesus says that these false teachers are ravenous, the Greek word He uses there is harpax. And it is related to the word for aggressive greed, which is harpagē. Do you hear the similarity there? Harpax and harpagē. They’re related. The word for ravenous shares root similarities with the word for greed. Jesus picked this word on purpose because He wants you to hear the play on words. He’s describing a wolf that is ravenous, but He very much intends for you to pick up on the imagery that false teachers are greedy (v 15).

It is all about themselves and themselves alone. This is why Jesus says that a true servant from God never puts himself first. He is always putting others first (Mark 10:43–45). In the kingdom of God, the last will be first and the first will be last (Matt 20:16). In Luke 11:39, it says:

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and evil.’” (Luke 11:39, CSB)

They are the ravenous wolves. So, this begs the question, what in the world are they greedy for? My favorite description—and in fact, you could read it much like a job description—is found in 2 Peter 2. I’m not going to read the whole thing, but I’m just going to give you the bullet points. If you want to be a false teacher, these are your qualifications that you must meet:

• They bring about destructive heresies, including, but not always, denying Jesus (2 Pet 2:1).
• You must slander the faith so that true Christians are also slandered (v 2). In other words, they make the Church look bad. How many of us have seen people leave the Church, and when you ask them why they are no longer a Christian, never do you hear them respond with the words, “Because Jesus.” It’s always “Because Christians.” These false teachers make Christians look bad, and therefore they make Jesus look bad, and they make us look bad.
• Jesus told us they’re going to pick on us anyway (John 15:18–20). The world is always going to pick on His followers. So you just let the slander you get because of false teachers roll off your back like water on a duck, okay? But that’s part of the job description. So if you want to be a false teacher, you’ve got to make us look bad.
• The other thing is you must exploit others because of your greed using made-up stories (2 Pet 2:3).
• You must follow polluted desires and you must despise authority because you’re deeply grounded in your own arrogance (v 10).
• You must also take pleasure in deceiving God’s people (v 13).
• You must seduce unstable people (v 14).
• You must choose the path of wickedness because it pays good money (v 15).
• Your biggest target must be new believers because they don’t know the word of God well (v 18).

Folks, I’m not saying every televangelist is not trustworthy, but I am deeply afraid that we have all too readily handed the job of making disciples to people inside the television. No one should feel like they have to watch TV in order to learn the Bible, Church. And your pastor cannot teach everybody one-on-one. Your deacons cannot do it. It is a whole Church effort to make disciples (Matt 28:19–20).

If you know someone that is struggling in their life and you know they are struggling because they’re being hoodwinked because they don’t know the Bible, it is your calling if they are in your life to show up to their house and say, “Why don’t we do a Bible study together? Let’s just read the Bible together.” But all too readily, the Church in the last fifty years has been too happy to let people in the television make disciples for the Church. And these people have figured out how to make a ton of money doing it. In fact, I would say the reason, part of the reason why churches are so shallow today, is because we’ve handed off the job of making disciples to others instead of doing it ourselves.

We must unveil the heart of teachers by looking for the fruit of beatitudes (v 16–18)

At this point, you must recognize how critically important it is to study the hearts of our teachers so that we can protect ourselves and others around us from them. But it is not like false teachers are advertising their greedy motives, are they? So how do we uncover their motives? Well, we must unveil the heart of teachers by looking for the fruit of the Beatitudes (Matt 5:3–12).

Look for transformation, not tongues, or other miracles (v 21b–22)

You see, Jesus says that we must look for transformation and not tongues or other miracles. Look at verses 21-22. These people, these false teachers, they are ones who do not do the will of the Father. So you might be thinking, what is the will of the Father if it’s not prophesying, if it’s not doing many mighty miracles, and if it’s not casting out demons?

These are good things. In fact, Paul says in the book of First Corinthians, He wishes the churches would have the gift of prophecy (1 Cor 14:1). He tells you to pray for it. I wish this Church was saturated with the true gift of prophecy. I want everybody to be confident that you carry the authority of Jesus and you can say, “In Jesus’ name, demon, you are not welcome here.” I want people to be confident in God’s power. But even these people are being sent to hell because they are lawbreakers and they do not do the will of the Father, according to verse 21.

So what in the world is God looking for? This is all part of the Sermon on the Mount. Check out Matthew 5:3–10. This is the fruit of being a disciple of Jesus. The true disciple produces fruit of saying that they are transformed on the inside. So you want to know what a good teacher from the Lord looks like?

First and foremost, they are poor in spirit (Matt 5:3). They recognize that their stuff stinks and there is nothing good inside of them outside of Jesus (Rom 7:18). They are the most humble people on earth, or they ought to be. I know that I will struggle with pride from time to time, just like every human being. But if you see pride in me or any other leader in this Church, you say, “Hey, pastor, deacon, brother, sister, I love you, but I really think you stepped out of line there. You kind of called too much attention to yourself. That belongs to God and He shares His glory with no other (Isa 42:8).” That’s what teachers should exhibit.

Also, they will mourn when they sin (Matt 5:4). When they mess up, they will say, “I messed up.” They do not ever double down and say, “You are the problem.” I am sick of churches with leaders who will double down instead of acknowledging that they sinned. Your true teachers from God will be humble. In verse 5 and verse 6, they will hunger and thirst to be righteous (Matt 5:5–6). And they will hunger and thirst for righteousness in their people.

Too many leaders in churches are looking for their churches to just give money. They are only looking to see the pews filled. You know what I’m looking for? I’m looking for great prayer lives in my people (1 Thess 5:17). You know what I’m looking for? I want you to give your money, but I want you to give your money and not tell anybody about it (Matt 6:3). I want you to give your money to missions. I want you to break over the people who are dying and they have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want my people to be mature, memorizing the word of God (Ps 119:11). I want my people to hunger and thirst for true saving faith in their children. I want my people to hunger and thirst to see their neighbors come to know Jesus in a saving way. I want men to stop looking at pornography. I want women to adore their husbands like they ought to adore Christ (Eph 5:22–33). I want couples to stop cutting each other down with their jokes and their sardonic laughter. I want us to love each other. That’s what a true leader should be looking for in his people. Not money. Not popularity.

In verse 8, they’re pure in heart (Matt 5:8). You can’t find anything to criticize about their heart. You might say they’re loud, they’re obnoxious, they’re weird. Case in point. But what you shouldn’t be able to do is say they have bad motives. And then they are peacemakers (v 9). In verse 10, they are persecuted because they do the right thing all the time (Matt 5:10). They follow Jesus and people are going to pick on them. They’re going to be kicked out of venues. They’re going to be shadow banned on social media. For those of you who don’t know what that means, that means that if you say something that the social media platform doesn’t agree with, they won’t tell you they’re banning you. They just make all your posts disappear from your friends, and you won’t know that no one is seeing your posts. Shadow banning. It is a silent way to snuff out your speech. Modern-day persecution in America.

These are the qualities of transformation. And all too many of our brothers and sisters are told to look up to the teachers who have persuasive speech, who are great Bible teachers, and you don’t even have a relationship with them. How many teachers do we trust because they are prolific publishing authors, or they are great stage speakers with high production quality video filmmakers that work for their churches, and you don’t even have a relationship with these people to know if they’re bearing the fruit of transformation? We must be very careful who we submit our hearts to.

And particularly, I’m speaking to those who are newer in the faith or do not have a strong grasp on the Bible. For those who have been walking in the faith and have seen teachers live out in the public for many, many decades, that’s different, right? I don’t want y’all to get the feeling that I’m telling you can’t trust anybody who’s published or has a sermon that’s published online. People watch our sermons online. But you must know who you can trust, and the only way you can trust them is to know what kind of fruit they are bearing when they’re not in the pulpit. The pulpit is not enough to know.

And then the other thing I want to make sure that you understand is that if you feel like you aren’t doing well as a Christian because you’re not like the “big shot” that’s doing it with great strength and power, just remember what God is after in you are the Beatitudes: pure in heart, you mourn when you sin, you’re meek, you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you’re merciful, you forgive people, you’re pure in heart, you’re a peacemaker, and you’re persecuted when you do good (Matt 5:3–12). That’s what God is after. If you fall into that category, rejoice, because you have evidence that you are in the kingdom of God.

Trees are either healthy or diseased

But why does looking at the fruit of transformation work as a litmus test? It is because trees are either healthy or diseased. You see, Jesus says here that the fruit of the tree—let’s see here, going back to our passage—He says here, you’re going to recognize a tree by its fruit (Matt 7:16). So what kind of fruit are they bearing? And He tells you: grapes, they never come from thornbushes. You don’t even have to be a farmer to know that’s true. Right, Bart? That’s right. You don’t pick grapes from thornbushes.

In ancient culture, a thornbush was seen as a useless item. And if you are not producing grapes, you’re like the thornbush—you’re useless to God (v 19). And what happens when you need to plant a vineyard and your vineyard has thornbushes? What do you do with them? You burn them. And so it is when God returns, when Jesus comes to earth and He’s looking for those who are producing grapes and figs, what will He find? Will He find fruit in your life? Or will He find thornbushes? Because He’s planting. This is why He says, “Pray that the Lord would raise up farm workers who will go out into the field and harvest (Matt 9:37–38).” God is planting a beautiful garden. He’s returning all of us to the Garden of Eden and He’s looking for fruit.

Their fruit is either useful or useless in God’s mission

So why does the litmus test work? It’s because you are only one of two species: the fruit-bearing kind or the diseased kind. A diseased person produces—here’s the interesting word. He doesn’t say “useless” fruit; He says “evil” fruit (Matt 7:17). He uses the Greek word related to ponēros for evil. You are producing a fruit that is evil.

Watch this. Some time ago in the last century, we said, “You know what? God doesn’t matter anymore. We can take Him out of public life.” And then we said, “Well, if God’s not real, neither is the image of God.” And who bears the image of God? Us (Gen 1:27). So that is a useless tree producing, just teaching worthless philosophy. And what was the fruit that came out of telling people they don’t bear the image of God anymore? Abortion. Evil fruit. Because if you take away the image of God, humans have no more value. If you take away the image of God, you give birth to an industry like pornography. Because now, we are no longer valuable; we are products to be sold.

Do you see? We, if we are useless in God’s kingdom, we do not produce morally neutral fruit. We produce evil fruit (Matt 7:18). And that is what false prophets do. They do not merely produce neutral Christians; they produce Christians that produce evil fruit. And this is why in churches in America, we have youth groups whose youth pastors are sexually assaulting their students in Church. Because we are not looking for the right fruit. We’re looking for the cool kid who can rally a crowd. We shouldn’t be looking for that fruit because that produces evil.

So which tree are we looking for? Ultimately, what you’re looking for, you’re looking for the useful fruit that supplies God’s mission, and His mission is to make disciples of every nation (Matt 28:19).

The fate of every false Christian is fiery condemnation (v 19–20, v 23)

The last point here is the fate of every false Christian is fiery condemnation. We picked up on this last week when we were talking about the narrow path. The narrow path is hard. We have to walk it. But it’s the path that leads to the gate that leads to life (Matt 7:13–14). But the easy path is the one that is wide and everybody’s taking it. And Jesus says it leads to destruction.

It’s the same way with false teachers. False teachers are cool. Everybody likes them. They rally a crowd until you get burned by them. But Jesus says that they receive fire. “You will recognize them by their fruit,” He says (v 20). But verse 19: “Every tree that does not produce good fruit” or useful fruit “is cut down and thrown into the fire.” This is not just a fire. This is the fire that burns for eternity (Matt 25:41). It never ceases. Their heat and their flames and their smoke go up for eternity (Rev 14:11).

This is why if you want to teach, it’s one of the scariest callings you could ever imagine. Because every word that leaves our mouths, we will have to give an account for before God (Matt 12:36). There is a higher standard of calling for those who teach (Jas 3:1). And for those who are false teachers, they receive eternal condemnation in the fiery pits of hell, and it never goes out (Mark 9:43).

This is why He says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord.’” You see, it is right for us to tell people they need to come to Jesus. I understand the sentiment of telling people you’ve got to invite Jesus into your heart. And calling Jesus Lord is very important (Rom 10:9). But so many of us forget to tell them you have to live a life of repentance and good fruit. Because we don’t want to sound like your salvation is based on your works (Eph 2:8–9). But folks, not everyone who calls Jesus Lord is going to be saved. Only those who do the will of the Father and produce a life of fruitful repentance and usefulness in the kingdom of God (Matt 7:21).

You do not produce fruit so that you can be saved. You produce fruit because you are saved. Please hear me. You cannot earn your salvation. But you must ask yourself, “Am I producing fruit?” Because not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of the Father.

Now, with that, I want to encourage you to look for false teachers. I want you to be brave and bold. If you see someone who is watching a false teacher, ask them, “Well, what about his fruit?” Sometimes that’s hard. It is exhausting to always be vetting as your pastor. When I hear y’all watch something, never heard of a guy, I’m going back and I’m looking him up. And if you haven’t heard back from me, it’s because I agree, he’s great. But if you’re following somebody that I disagree with or I’m concerned about, I will come and tell you. But it’s much better if the whole Church is doing it.

There’s going to come a day—I’m not saying when that is, I don’t know—where this Church will have to form a new pastoral search committee. When you do, remember this sermon. Do not look for a person that has the most experience. Do not look for the person that is the most charismatic. Look at his marriage (1 Tim 3:2). Look at his children (v 4). And ask his friends, “Does this guy walk the walk?”

And then I want to talk to my other brothers and sisters that are so quick to call everybody they disagree with a false teacher. You know the type. “Oh, that guy’s going to hell. He’s a Calvinist.” Y’all know the type, right? Or “That guy’s going to hell. He’s an Arminian. He believes that he’s the reason he’s saved because he thinks he chose Jesus.” “That guy’s evil because he thinks Jesus made him a Christian.” Or “That guy’s a false teacher because he likes to play electric guitar at Church.” “That guy’s a false teacher because he drank a glass of wine on Thanksgiving.” “That guy’s a false teacher because he said something I don’t like.”

That’s not a false teacher. False teachers are those who have greedy motives to make the most of themselves and take all the glory from the Lord (v 15). With that, I rejoice that the Lord has given us a litmus test for us to know when someone is from the enemy. So Church, let’s be on guard and stay aware because there are many false teachers and false prophets in the world.

Father, I thank You so much that You have given us what we need in order to be aware of who is and is not of You. I pray that You would please help us to stay aware, but also that You would help us to be aware of our own selves and our own walk. Help us to always be asking, “Am I bearing fruit that is in line with repentance (Matt 3:8)?” Do I exhibit the Beatitudes? Am I asking people to hold me accountable? Lord, I pray that You would help us to be holy and mature and to know the word of God well. Be with Your flock. In Jesus’ name, amen.