Trinity 8

Text: Matt. 7:15-23

In the holy Name of Jesus, Amen.

As a Christian, you judge with Christ now, lest you be judged by Him later.

I

You are to judge with Christ. Our Lord says “Beware of false prophets.” By this He tells us to judge teachers and their teaching. He tells us to judge them false when they do not teach the truth. He tells us to regard false teachers as dangerous—dangerous as ravenous wolves. He also tells us how to judge teachers. Not by their charisma or their charm, not by your own likes and dislikes, but “By their fruits you will know them. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a 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. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.” Your fruit is what you have to offer. The fruit of a teacher is principally his teaching. If his teaching does not conform to the wholesome word of God, then you are to judge his teaching as worthless. Like rotten fruit, it is disgusting and inedible. And if the fruit is bad, you conclude the tree is diseased. If the teacher teaches false doctrine, he is a false teacher. As a Christian you are to judge false doctrine against the truth—the truth revealed of Scripture. You are not to tolerate errors and lies but are to avoid them—and those who teach them.

But people don’t like judging false teachers and teaching. We live in a strange age. The prevailing feeling in American Churches is that judging false teachers is unimportant. Its distracting, reactionary, mean-spirited—and doesn’t really matter. Why is that? We care little about errors because the churches in our country care very little about the truth. People aren’t that interested in biblical doctrine, in the bible’s distinctions and distinctives. And so people say what does it matter what you teach or believe about the Lord’s Supper, or baptism, or predestination, or sin, or marriage, or even the Trinity, so long as you preach about the cross and tell people to be nice? If you talk about God’s love and tell people to love each other, who should condemn you? Why should anyone judge you as a false teacher if you get the basics right? Who even cares about all the other little things, anyway?

Well, God cares—or else He wouldn’t have put them in the bible. And so every Christian should care about them, too. Jesus says, “Beware of false teachers.” And so you should be on your guard. Do you want to let wolves in with the lambs? Do you want to eat rotten fruit? No—because you know that wolves are a danger to lambs, as is rotten fruit to health. Jesus’ point with those metaphors is that false teachers and false teaching are actually spiritually dangerous to us. But that’s just the thing. The church of our day doesn’t see the danger in false teaching—or even really believe that false teaching could ever be dangerous. And maybe that’s because in our day and age we care too much about material things and not enough about spiritual things. If your belly’s always full, what does it matter if your soul’s fed rotten fruit?

But you, Christian, do not judge with people according to the spirit of the age, but judge with Christ in the Spirit. He cares about falsehood because He cares about the truth. And so you must care about falsehood and false teachers because as a Christian, you care about the truth. So, know the truth. Read the bible. Care about what it says, even when that challenges you. Remember that you have the Spirit of Christ. As Paul says in our epistle, “You did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit will guide you in the truth. He will open the words of Scripture to your understanding. Besides the bible, you are also blessed to have the catechism. We use the catechism not because it is an additional source of truth apart from the bible, but because it’s a helpful summary of biblical teachings. So you can go to the catechism and say, “hm, what does the bible say about sin? What does the bible say about the Lord’s Supper?” and it has a simple answer for you. We also have our Liturgy, the order of service we use. The confession of sins, the different hymns praising God for Christ’s work of redemption, the creed, the blessings the pastor speaks, the prayers we say—all of it also teaches the truth. So learn from it, too.

As a Christian, learn the truth, and have no part in falsehood.

II

You need to judge with Christ now lest you be judged by Him later—on the last day. In the second half of our reading, Jesus says that He will judge those who say “Lord, Lord” yet don’t do the will of His Father. He will judge false teachers who teach falsehood in His name and don’t repent of it. He won’t let them into the kingdom of heaven. It is not enough to say, “Lord, Lord.” But a teacher must do the will of Christ’s Father in heaven. He must preach the truth. A hearer also must do the will of Christ’s Father in heaven. He must listen to and believe the truth—and avoid falsehood.

Our Lord says that He won’t listen to excuses on that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?” But He will say, “I never knew you; depart form Me, you who practice lawlessness.” That seems harsh, doesn’t it? But it’s not. It’s just. Because the greatest idolatry is to practice lawlessness. To throw out God’s teachings and set yourself up as the judge of truth and error, of good and evil. The false teachers Jesus speak of here have this excuse, “Didn’t we do many things in your name? In other words, weren’t we so great? We thought so, so why don’t you?” But if anyone doesn’t do the will of the Father, if anyone doesn’t teach the truth but actually thinks he can set aside what he doesn’t like or change something to suit is fancy—is not a believer, but an idolater and blasphemer.

Some people teach falsehood from ignorance. Some who teach falsehood in ignorance may still be true believers because at the end of the day they repent of their sins, even those they’re not aware of, and they trust in the Lord Jesus. But ignorance is a terrible excuse to plead. You know that you can’t get out of a ticket by pleading ignorance and saying, “Sorry, officer. I didn’t know that was illegal” because acquainting yourself with the basic laws for operating a motor vehicle is considered your reasonable responsibility. In the same way, the epistle to James says, “Let not many of you desire to be teachers, brethren, for you will be judged with a stricter judgement.” Woe to those who plead ignorance because they never seriously think about what the bible actually teaches and don’t consider themselves conscience bound to seek the truth and preach the truth.

Jesus says that He will judge false teachers. But He says this as a warning to every Christian, so that we do not follow them. If you follow false teachers, you risk sharing in their judgement. You might end up believing the falsehood they teach to the peril of your soul. And further, God tells you that you need to care about the truth. If you actually believe that what you believe, who listen to, where you go to church doesn’t matter, and if you really claim for yourself the freedom to judge for yourself what to believe, you are not a Christian—a hearer, a disciple (which means learner) of Jesus! And then you will on that day say, “Lord, Lord, didn’t I still go to church and do all these things,” but He will judge you and say, “I never knew you. Depart from you, you who practice lawlessness.”

So judge with Christ now lest you be judged by Him later. Flee idolatry. Beware of false teachers. Judge false teaching. And stand fast in the truth. As you pledged in your confirmation vow, you would rather suffer the loss of all things, even death, for the sake of the truth. And that is because the truth is sweet, life-giving fruit for your soul. And this is the truth—that in Christ Jesus crucified on the cross for sin you a sinner have a gracious God. Every truth the bible reveals either lays the foundation for or builds upon that blessed capstone of the truth. If any truth be discarded the structure falls. But if every part is set in its proper place, the truth will be your strong tower of refuge in life and in death. In it your faith will rest secure and you will be preserved blameless until the day of Jesus Christ, who will judge you worthy of eternal life because you believed, and loved, and confessed, and followed His truth.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.