From His Heart

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Today on From His Heart, Pastor Jeff will help you develop spiritual insight so you can spot the wolves among the sheep.

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He can heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope. From his heart.

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Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve for this Wednesday broadcast. You know, the Bible is very clear concerning the warnings about false prophets. And they're not something new. They've been around a long, long time.

Today on the broadcast, Pastor Jeff cautions believers that it's still a major concern that we are keenly aware and also very wary of false prophets. Today we're going to hear part two of the lesson called Wolves among the Sheep. It's from Pastor Jeff's timely series, Discernment in the Days of Deception. If you missed part one from last time, you can listen again online at fromhisheart.org, click the listen link.

Hey. The Lord knows, and we should too know, that we're living in unprecedented times. But these are times about which we've been warned would be coming. They're here. So open your Bible to Matthew, chapter seven, as Pastor Jeff Shreve shows us how to spot and, most importantly, how to avoid wolves among the sheep.

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When it comes to the subject of false prophets, it's important to ask some questions and answer those questions. So four questions I want to hit you with today.

Question number one. Why are there false prophets? I mean, what's the deal? Why do we even have these in the world? The answer is in verses 13 and 14. Look at it again. Jesus said, "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, that leads to perishing, that leads to eternal damnation. And many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life. And few are those who find it." Why are there false prophets? It's because the stakes couldn't be higher. Eternity weighs in the balance. There are two roads, only two roads in life. There's the broad road that leads to hell and the narrow road that leads to life. The narrow road has a narrow gate, has a small gate. The broad road has a wide gate, and the stakes couldn't be higher. The devil wants his desire to deceive you and me and us and to see us end up in hell. He tries to deceive those whom God loves so that they would believe a lie, so that they would stay on the broad road and so they would end up in hell.

Second question. What is a false prophet? Now, Old Testament prophets, they would foretell the future. God would give them a message. They would preach to the people, but they would also tell them, "Thus says the Lord, this is going to happen." The people could then tell if this guy was true or not. Because if those things came to pass, then, hey, he gave us a message from God. If those things didn't come to pass, then you knew he was a false prophet. A true prophet is sent from God to speak for God. A false prophet is not. He sins himself and he speaks not the words that God gives him. He speaks what sounds good to him, and he tries to build a following.

Now, when you talk about a false prophet, they come in various forms. The first category of false prophet is a heretic. The heretic is somebody that is out in left field on core issues of Christianity. Most of the time, what you find with heretics is they're off when it comes to the person of Jesus Christ; they will deny, typically, the deity of Jesus Christ. Some are heretics, some are apostates. You say, what's an apostate? Well, apostasy means to fall away from the faith. Apostates are people who seem like they're part of the family. They seem like they're really into everything. As John said, "They went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out in order that it might be shown that they are all not of us." The major apostate in the Bible is Judas, one of the 12. None of the other guys knew that Judas was false. They trusted Judas. They trusted him so much that of the 12, they made him the treasurer. They didn't know that about Judas. They were blown away when they found out that Judas was the betrayer.

Some are heretics, some are apostates. And thirdly, here are the ones that are problematic: many are subtle deceivers. See, it's not hard to spot a heretic. It's not hard to spot an apostate because they fall away from the faith. The heretics deny the faith. Matthew, chapter 7, verse 6, Jesus said, "Do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before swine." It's not hard to spot a dog. It's not hard to spot a hog. What's harder to spot are the subtle deceivers. Those are the ones that come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves. Those are the problematic ones. That's what the devil wants to do. He's a deceiver, and he wants to come to you. He doesn't want to come to you 10 degrees off because you can spot that. He wants to come to you one degree off, and he comes to you one degree off, and you don't recognize that, and you don't notice that. Your senses aren't trained to discern good and evil, and you swallow up the lie. Subtle deceivers abound.

Now the Bible says in Second Timothy 3:13, "But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." Now here's the question: Does every false prophet know he's a false prophet? Some know that they're just doing this for the money, and they turn Christianity into a money-making scheme. But other people, I don't know, I think they're deceived themselves by the devil, and they think they're doing good, but they're one degree off, and they're leading the plane to crash land in the ocean. Hey, we're supposed to watch out for them. Jude says this: "For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, crept into the church. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation. Ungodly persons who turned the grace of our God into licentiousness." That's a license to sin and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. Very telling.

So what is a false prophet? Why are there false prophets?

Question number three. How can you tell if someone's a false prophet? Well, that's a key question, right? Because you don't want to get on the plane when the pilot is a degree off the flight path. Because you think you're getting on this plane, this church. He's the pilot of the church. You think he's taking you to heaven, and he's crash landing you into the ocean, and you're going to be on the broad road that leads to destruction. You don't want to be there. So how can I tell the true from the false? How can I know if someone is a false prophet? Well, Jesus said this. Look at verse 15 again. "Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then you will know them by their fruits." That's how you know. That's how you can tell the true prophet from the false prophet. You look at their fruits.

Now, Matthew, chapter 7, verse 1 says, "Do not judge, lest you be judged." We are not the judge. God is the judge. But God has called us as His children to be fruit inspectors. It's important to inspect the fruit because you shall know them by their fruits. Hey, if we're not supposed to judge in the way of looking at a person's production, then you're going to be deceived all over the place. You have to be able to judge what you hear and what you see.

So three areas where you inspect the fruit. Number one, check the fruit of their teaching. What does this person say in their teaching? Do they strengthen you in the word of God, or do you find yourself listening to them questioning the word of God? One of the nation's most popular teachers and preachers and authors loves to throw out things that make people question the word of God. I mean, he had a famous little quote, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." He said, "That's the beginning of the trouble." What's problematic about that? The Bible does tell me that Jesus loves me. We teach our kids that; that is solid, that is good. But he starts questioning that.

Hey, listen, anytime you find some teacher, some professor, some preacher somewhere who likes to question the word of God, who likes to make you doubt the word of God, be careful of that guy because that's what the devil does. When we see the devil come on the scene in Genesis chapter three, he says to Eve, "Indeed, has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?" Question mark. He takes what God says, he twists what God says, he adds a question mark to the word of God. Anybody that does that is doing the work of the devil.

So listen to what they say, listen to what they don't say. You listen to somebody, watch them on television, listen on the radio, read their books or whatever, and listen for what is not said. Because so much of the time, they're not going to talk about sin, they're not going to talk about judgment, they're never going to talk about hell. Most of the people go to church today, and they don't ever hear about hell. Why? Oh, nobody wants to hear about that. The pastor of the largest church in America, what does he say? "No, we don't ever talk about sin in our church. We just want to make people feel good." And that doesn't make people feel good.

Hey, suppose you have cancer, and you go to the cancer doctor, and he says to you, "Hey, just want to let you know up front, we don't talk about cancer in this office because that's going to be depressing for people. We just want people to feel good." You're like, "Well, doctor, I got diagnosed with cancer. Don't say that word. We're just going to act like you, here's some happy pills and go on your way." I mean, if you have cancer, you've got to face the facts. I have cancer. Sin is a cancer of the soul. You're infected with it, and I'm infected with it, and every single person on this planet is infected with it. As David said in Psalm 51, "I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." I have a sin nature, and I have a sin problem.

So I come to church, and I need somebody to deal with the real problem in my life. The problem is sin. If I don't deal with that problem in my life and I live the rest of my life not dealing with that problem, I'm going to stay on the broad road, and I'm going to hell. It's really important that we in the church talk about sin. Listen to what they're not talking about. If they're just talking about blessing, if they're just talking about good things and your next promotion, and man, God is for you, and God, He's behind you all the way, and He's so proud of you, and all those things are true. But that becomes... See, if part of the truth becomes all of the truth, that part of the truth becomes an untruth. You're not telling people the whole counsel of God, and you're not dealing with the fact that they have a cancer that is going to kill them and send them to hell forever.

So check the fruit of their teaching. Secondly, check the fruit of their lives. Look at their lives. See, false prophets have things in common. Peter talks about this and devotes a whole chapter to this in Second Peter, chapter two. "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep." A false teacher is greedy for gain. He is sensual. Those are some marks, some character traits.

Interestingly, when Jesus said inwardly, they're ravenous wolves, in my Greek dictionary, one of the definitions for ravenous is a robber. It says this metaphorically: a cruel, greedy destroyer of men. That's what a ravenous wolf is. Somebody said ravenous means you are greedy for power and for gain and for self. So they don't care about you, they don't care about the sheep, they care about themselves, and they're greedy in terms of they see you as dollar signs. How are you going to give to... And that's why a lot of these guys, they've been exposed, all these fake faith healers, and they do these things that are supposed to wow the people, and then the buckets are there to say, "Hey, now you give to the ministry." And giving to the ministry really just means give to me, give to me.

That's why you see these people, and they get exposed, and what are they? They're living these lavish lifestyles, and they live in these million-dollar homes, and they drive all these fancy cars, and they have this and they have that. The Bible says, "Hey, that should be a big red flag that goes up that says watch out for that guy." Because they have the characteristic of a false teacher: greedy for gain. Watch their fruit, the fruit of their lives.

And then thirdly, check the fruit of their disciples. Who's following these people? One thing that you'll notice, they never lack for followers. The false teachers never lack for followers. Hey, check the fruit of the hearers. You might be listening to someone who is a feel-good preacher, and you say, "You know, but every time I listen to him, I feel so good." The church is supposed to be a hospital for sick people. That's what we exist for. We're a hospital for sick people. Everybody is sick with the same disease: sin. Sin is the cancer of the soul. It's going to kill you and send you to hell forever. But everybody is sick with that. We're a hospital for sick people to help people with the cancer of their soul: sin.

Now a hospital, when you go to the hospital, they will do things to you that you don't like. They will say you need surgery. "Oh, I don't want that." And then you need rehab, and you need this, and you need chemo, and you need all these treatments. You're going to be hurt before you get better. But if you do those things and everything's a success, you get better, and you walk out of there, and you're like, "Man, I am so much better." But a hospital will hurt you in order to help you.

You know what we have today in our world? We have churches that say, "I don't want to be a hospital because people don't like the hospital. I want to be hospice. I want to be a place where you come in, and we give you a big old shot of morphine, and you just feel so good. You know, you got cancer, but you don't care because you just feel so good. And we tell you, 'Oh, you know, you're fine. God loves everybody. True love wins. It doesn't matter.' And here's another shot of morphine, and your best life is now, and God is going to pat you on the back, and God is so proud of you, and He's so pleased with you." All that stuff, and you feel so good.

Have you ever had a shot of morphine? Don't really know how to answer that, right? Hey, when I was a younger guy, I tore my knee up playing basketball, tore my patella tendon. I had to have surgery. This surgery lasted longer than it was supposed to. I got out of that surgery, and when they got me into recovery, they wouldn't let Debbie see me for a long time. They said, "We can't manage his pain." I was in so much pain. When I finally got to the room, I was just beyond a 10 on the pain chart. I was hurting so bad, I just started to cry. I didn't know what else to do. And Debbie said to the nurse, "You need to get him some pain medicine." And she said, "We can't. We've given him all that we can give him." She said, "Yes, you can. You can get him some. You get the doctor on the phone right now, and you get him some." That's why we're here in the hospital. And Debbie can be a bulldog.

So anyway, she did that, and they came back, and the nurse said, "Okay, we talked to the doctor. We can give him some morphine." They came in with a syringe of morphine, and they gave me a shot of morphine. And the world was right again. I mean, it was a wonderful thing. I wasn't in pain anymore. That's what churches are doing. They're shooting people up with morphine. They're not telling them the truth.

God has called His church and His preachers to speak the truth in love, to care enough about people to say, "I don't want you to go to hell. I want you to trust Christ and go to heaven."

So, last question. I'll be very brief. What happens to false prophets and their followers? Verse 21: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'"

Hey, what happens to false prophets and those who follow them? They end up at the Great White Throne Judgment. That's what Jesus is talking about here. He's talking about Judgment Day at the Great White Throne. You can read about the Great White Throne Judgment in Revelation, chapter 20, verses 11 through 15. Everyone at the Great White Throne Judgment goes to hell. If any man's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. It's what we know as hell. And they're there why? Because they didn't preach in Jesus' name, though they said they did. "Lord, Lord, Lord." I mean, hey, Jesus, wait a minute. I preached in your name. I cast out demons in your name. I performed miracles in your name. Sound like some of the people we see on television, doesn't it? He said, "I never knew you. I never knew you."

So they end up at the Great White Throne, and they all end up going to hell. Not because that's what God wanted. He didn't want that. The Lord says at the Great White Throne, "Not my will, but yours be done." You said no to me. You didn't want to hear about repentance and faith. You wanted to go your own way. You wanted to create your own religion. Well, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. I never knew you.

So they go to hell because they never really knew Jesus. Hey, lots of people come to church and to good churches, to churches that preach the truth and believe the truth and lift up the cross of Jesus. They go to those churches, but as Vance Havner used to say, they've been starched and ironed, but they've never been washed.

Here's the question. Have you ever been washed? Do you just know about Jesus,

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Do you know him? Have you repented of your sin and turned to him in faith? If you don't know Christ, you can do that now in a personal way. Repent, turn from your sin. Put your faith in him alone. If you do, he'll come into your heart and you will be changed. You'll be a child of God, forever in his arms, surrendered to Him.

You can find out more about what this means when you go to fromisheart.org and click the "Why Jesus" link, where you can also download some free materials to get you started in your Christian life. Go to fromisheart.org and click the "Why Jesus" link.

Today's lesson was called "Wolves among the Sheep" from Pastor Jeff's series "Discernment in the Days of Deception." Listen, we are living in harsh, fierce, and savage times. That's not a secret. Are you able to properly understand the times and what you need to do in these difficult days? In the series "Discernment in the Days of Deception," you'll discover critical indicators of what to look for so you can guard your heart and your family too.

This series is our gift of thanks to you for your support from His Heart. This month, for any amount, it's available on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or an immediate MP3 download. When you make your gift, just call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go online to FromHisHeart.org and request the series "Discernment in the Days of Deception."

Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles, issuing you a special invitation to join Pastor Jeff tomorrow. As we take a short break before we end this series, we're going to pause and prepare our hearts for a Valentine weekend. Pastor Jeff will be here with a timely and timeless message about love and marriage.

Join us on Thursday and Friday for this lovely lesson when Pastor Jeff will open God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart. Here on From His Heart.

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There is truth There is hope that you always dream of he can heal every scars of real truth, real love, real hope from his heart.

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From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out more. Go to promisheart.org.