Ye shall know them by their fruits

It has ever been the object of Satan to imitate what is of God, and the New Testament gives many warnings of the coming of those who are false: false prophets, false Christs, false apostles, false brethren, and false teachers, Matt. 24. 24; 2 Cor. 11. 13, 26; 2 Pet. 2. 1. To these we can add the warning of Paul who, writing of the last days said, ‘Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse’, 2 Tim. 3. 13. How timely then the call with which today’s reading begins, ‘Beware’!

Speaking of ‘false prophets’, the Lord indicated how easy it is to be deceived. Such men act subtly, coming in ‘sheep’s clothing’ when in nature and character they are ‘ravening wolves’. Later, when commissioning the twelve the Lord said, ‘I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves’, Matt. 10. 16. The false prophets present themselves as ‘sheep’, men called and sent by the Lord, but it is only a mask. In reality they are like greedy wolves, seeking unsuspecting victims to catch and devour. But how can we identify them if their true character is veiled? There is something that cannot be hid - the character of the fruit they produce, Matt. 7. 16, 20. In the world of horticulture the nature of the fruit corresponds to the nature of the plant or tree that produced it, a principle that goes back to creation when the earth brought forth ‘herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself, after his kind’, Gen. 1. 12. Applying the Lord’s teaching, expecting to receive what is edible and wholesome from false prophets is akin to looking for grapes on thorns, or figs on thistles. The false prophet is represented by things that are a result of the fall, thorns and thistles, and by a corrupt tree in which the foliage might be abundant, but the fruit bad. Thus it is with these unregenerate prophets. Just as corrupt trees are dispensed with, so the false prophet is to be rejected, Matt. 7. 19. Any man can confess ‘Lord, Lord’, but the evidence of reality will be seen in such departing from iniquity, vv. 21-23; 2 Tim. 2. 19.

Because there are spiritual imposters we must act wisely towards all who approach us claiming to be servants of the Lord, for sometimes appearances can be deceiving.