Matthew 7:15-23 False Prophets

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[everythingchrist]

"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
"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.[/u]
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?'
Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

OK, noting the underlined words in particular, help me to see if what I perceive applies to some GC folks who lead.  I'm sure many are saved and will be fine with Jesus. 
Does anyone here want to look at these verses and help me turn from what I see as obvious here.  Let me know as this verse has come up many times over the past few years.
My husband and I are not at the GC church any longer, but I am particularly still are haunted with all that the folks here reiterate as my own experiences. 
Do GC pastors and leaders appear to have a real relationship with Christ or are they walking in the flesh?

 I know the LORD can heal and all this is in his hands, but really, shouldn't we all be concerned for the very GC leaders and new folks. 
Isn't there more we all ought to do than a forum? 
Please give me feedback if you are led by God to do so.  Thanks.

[EverAStudent]

Hi Everythingchrist,

I appreciate your zeal and the pain that GC inflicted on you, others, and myself.  However, while it is startling to read this passage as if it applied to selfish leaders and teachers (as we found in GC), I do not think this passage was originally meant to be taken that way.

Bad fruit and good fruit, in my opinion, are not generic sins.  We all give in to sin.  Bad fruit seems to mean teachings that lead people away from the Lord Jesus.  In fact, it is more than that, the people in this passage are saying, "God has told me that ..." and then they finish the sentence with some lie about Jesus.  Such lies include: Jesus did not come in the flesh, Jesus did not rise from the dead, Jesus' death and resurrection must be accompanied by keeping the OT Law to bring salvation, etc.

When such people say, "This is what the Lord said to me..." they are claiming to be prophets, not merely teachers.  They lie twice.  First by saying "This is what the Lord revealed to me" when God did not reveal such a thing, and then by saying something against Jesus.  That makes them false prophets.

In general this does not much apply to GC, as their doctrine of Jesus is fairly orthodox.  Also, they rarely say, "This is what the Lord told me."  Now, back in the Jim McCotter days he and his "national leaders" declared themselves prophets and apostles.  At that moment of declaration they became either false teachers or false prophets because they tried to seat themselves in the seats of the true prophets and apostles without the God-revealed authority to do so.  That does not mean they were not saved, but they were decidedly teaching unsound doctrine.  Nonetheless, I do not think they denied the nature of Jesus as the Christ, merely the nature of prophecy and apostleship.

But apart from that above event, I would not quickly attach GC to the Matthew 7:15 passage.  Of course, I must admit, there was a time when my emotions were running higher and I did think of GC leadership in terms of this passage, but over the years I have come to see them not as having been false prophets but as poor leaders and unfit teachers.

I would recommend reading: http://thefaithfulword.org/apostlepageone.html

[everythingchrist]

I don't know if I agree completely.  Jesus is saying "not everyone" but this means that those are mixed in with the ones who are not false teachers.  Just like the wheat and the tares.  Jesus was speaking to whom?  Those following Him around, His disciples, and the potential future church (at least on the outside)?  I wonder if GC leaders even consider the Holy Spirit at all in decisions or do they even refer others to pray and get revelation from God on personal decisions.  I did not once in five years hear anyone in leadership respond to someone asking questions or advice, whether on parenting, jobs, or relationship problems to go to the Master.  I never, not even once heard a sermon that had anything to do with Holy Spirit.  I think that GC leaders confuse themselves with the Spirit of God.  They want to be sought solely and this is why I think they're mixed in with the whole bunch. 

Does this make sense to anyone? These who say "Lord, Lord" are apparent worshippers.

[EverAStudent]

Matthew 7, like Matthew 5, is a sermon to the generic audience / crowd that has gathered to listen.  We know from the reactions of the crowd(s) that many never did believe, many were only there for the entertainment or the free meal.

Some have fooled themselves into thinking they are (or were) followers, but they were not because Jesus makes clear that He has never known them.  Like the parable of the dragnet and the parable of the tares reveals, there will always be unbelievers in the church that will only be "sorted out" at the end-of-time.  In fact, the parable of the tares warns against trying to weed out unbelievers from the church for fear of destroying the faith of young converts.

That is why the warning about false prophets is so striking.  They can be recognized and sorted out now.  Their prophetic utterances are actually against Jesus as the Christ or as the Son of God.  We have seen many such false apostles, have we not?  Joseph Smith and the Mormons, Russel and the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Word of Faith teachers and their decree that Jesus had to Himself be saved, etc. 

If bad fruits were just ordinary sins, we would all be "false prophets" because we all regularly sin.  Bad fruits must be related to their speech as prophets, and what speech is so bad that it instantly identifies one as an unbeliever except that they teach against Jesus as the Christ, the eternal Son of God?

Blessings.

[everythingchrist]

what speech is so bad that it instantly identifies one as an unbeliever except that they teach against Jesus as the Christ, the eternal Son of God?

You are articulate and clear; but I don't believe that I am being clear.  It is too obvious to deny Christ, but I personally have not heard sermons that really preach the Gospel -- it's always 1) works, 2) playing Holy Spirit; 3) lack of Scripture.  These three items are particularly concerning since the law and grace are incompatible.  My husband and I were told by my pastor, in a group setting, on two occasions "If you are not sharing the Gospel on a regular and consistent basis, you are not saved."  This was group-directed, not just to us.  It was repeated at the next meeting as well.  It was evidence that you aren't saved.....we were told at that time to have a goal of 15 people in 15 weeks.  But, did the Lord direct them to teach this?  Can man be so abased and acursed that he can believe he is really the Holy Spirit or at least an apostle and return us to works or the law again.  Isn't this law-grace-law?  Aren't they teaching false doctrine?

[EverAStudent]

Not to put too fine a spin on your point (how's that for a mixed metaphor?), but there is a difference between trying to establish a list of evidences of salvation and creating a works-based-salvation.  

In other words, saying, "an evidence of salvation is that one obeys the Great Commission and witnesses to others that Jesus is the Christ" is not the same as saying, "one must witness one time per week to become saved."  The first is an evidence, the second is false works based salvation law.

GC is unquestionably legalistic.  They invent laws of conduct which the Bible does not impose on Christians.  However, they rarely (if ever) say one is not saved if they do not follow all their invented laws.  Usually they imply that the one who does not follow their legalisms is "immature" or "unspiritual."  This kind of judging people as unspiritual is a sin, and is rooted in unsound teaching, but it does not immediately identify the legalist as an unbeliever.  

Every teacher will at times teach something wrong.  Those wrong teachings are false, even false "doctrines" (the word doctrines just means "a teaching").  But teachers can learn and grow.  

By contrast, when a prophet speaks "in the name of the Lord" anything that is in error, they have shown themselves to be false prophets.  Quite possibly that person is an unbeliever.  If the false teaching denies that Jesus is the Messiah come in the flesh, the perfect Son of God, the Savior risen from the dead, then that person is most likely an unbeliever and a false prophet.

GC pastors today are not quick to identify their words as those that God has uttered to them.  Nor do they often deny the nature of Jesus as the Christ.