Matthew 7, the Lord says here,
verse 15, Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know
them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit, neither a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down
and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits ye
shall know them." When he tells us here to beware
of false prophets the Lord taught us in the two verses prior to
this That there that Christ is the straight gate He is the narrow
way and he said that many go in the wide gate many go in the
broad way so the majority of prophets of preachers of teachers
are false That's just simple understanding. And in fact, our
Lord said in Matthew 24 11, many false prophets shall rise and
shall deceive many. Now, he's telling us here to
beware of false prophets in sheep's clothing. So we're talking about
men who wear the outward dress of Christ's true sheep. Clothing's the outer garment
which you can see. False prophets will appear. They
will appear in the same outward dress as the sheep. They'll do
many wonderful works. But inwardly, they are ravenous
wolves. Now, outward obedience can be
imitated. It can be imitated by a lost
man. Paul said when he was a Pharisee,
touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. That
is, as far as the natural eye could see, you would have looked
at Paul and said, there's a righteous man. He hasn't broken the law. But the spirit of grace, the
love God gives in the heart for God and for his people cannot
be imitated. It can't be imitated. He says
in verse 16, ye shall know them. Ye shall know them. Now he's
talking to believers who have spiritual discernment. The believer
shall know the false prophet. The Lord said, my sheep hear
my voice and I know them and they follow me. And he said,
they will not follow a stranger. They'll flee from him. They know
not the voice of strangers. The scripture says that the eye
hasn't seen and the ear hasn't heard. It's not even entered
into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them
that love him. God hath revealed them unto us
by His Spirit. By His Spirit, He reveals the
truth in the heart to His sheep. And they hear His voice, and
they know it. We have received not the Spirit
of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might
know the things. that are freely given to us of
God. That's the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. We have the mind of Christ. He
says, He that's spiritual judgeth all things, yet he's judged of
no man. He can discern, he can hear,
he can understand, but he can't be understood by the natural
man. The natural man can't understand or discern. The believer can.
The natural man can't understand what the believer is talking
about, why he's rejoicing, why he's insistent on what he declares,
and where he holds to. He can't understand why. Why
he won't go the way of the world. The natural man can't understand
that. The believer hears Christ's voice, he follows Christ, and
he can discern the truth from a lie. Now verse 16, he says,
You shall know them by their fruits. Now, he asked a couple
of simple questions. Do men gather grapes from thorn
bushes? Do men gather figs from thistles? Of course they don't. Of course
not. Verse 17, even so, every good tree bringeth forth good
fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. Now, Let me stop you just a second
and let me say this. When you think of good fruit
and you think of evil fruit, don't just think of morality. Don't just think of morality. The Pharisees weren't committing
adultery. Morally speaking, they weren't
committing adultery. But spiritually speaking, they
had put away God from their midst. They had said, we won't have
you. Get away from her. We put you
away. And our eye is covetous for the glory that belongs to
God. Our eye is covetous for his bride. To usurp authority over her.
To have the glory that belongs to God. And in turning from God
to man. They were guilty of the whole
law of God. They were adulterers. An adulterous
generation. Evil fruit is that fruit that
points you to you in any regard, in any regard. Now, be sure you
get this next verse, verse 18. A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit. Now, we know we're not talking
about morality, don't we? We know we're not talking about
works of the flesh, don't we? Because God's sheep sin. God's sheep falter. They fail. Sin's mixed with all they do.
But He says a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Can't
do it. Neither can a corrupt tree bring
forth good fruit. A lost man can bring forth the
good fruit of morality. He can look very good in his
outward obedience. The Lord said, accept your righteousness,
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. You
can't enter into glory. We're not talking about the fruit
of morality, of touch not, taste not, handle not, of do and don't
do this and that. We're talking about the truth
here. Good fruit. The fruit that only
God produces. Watch this now. The Lord is speaking
of the new man, the new heart, which God has made, which is
united from Christ, which gets all truth, all understanding,
all will, all desire, all principles from Christ Jesus the Lord alone. From the vine. That's where the
fruit is produced. And from that new heart. Now
turn over to Matthew 12. Matthew 12, verse 33. This is the work of the Holy
Spirit. Verse 33, either make the tree good and his fruit good,
or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the
tree is known by his fruit. Now listen to what he says to
those. He's talking to some Pharisees. He says, O generation of vipers,
how can ye, being evil, speak good things? Speak good thing
for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh a Good
man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good
things And an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth
evil things now Paul told us He said, I give you to understand
that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed. He can't do it. And no man can
say Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. He can't do it. Now, a good tree cannot bring
forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good
fruit. Now, Turn with me to James chapter
one. James chapter one. I said to
you Thursday night, every book we're going through, this must
be something needful for us because every book we're going through,
Isaiah, Acts, the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, and James are all
dealing with this very same subject. Every one of them. We're at the
point where they're all dealing with this very same subject. Now,
this good fruit begins and it continues the same way it begins. Okay? It begins and continues
the same way it begins. Verse 17. Now, let me tell you
what James is talking about. He's talking about if you turn
from the truth in the midst of trial, see a brother fallen,
see a brother erring, be persecuted by those that don't believe the
truth. That's the trial of the faith he's dealing with. He's
talking to Jewish brethren scattered abroad who were being persecuted
by their own countrymen for believing Christ, who were having trouble
understanding they were not under the law any longer, who were
still wanting to observe the law. He's teaching them the only
thing that's going to correct that and bring a believer to
the truth is continually preaching the word of truth. Christ, the
fulfillment of the law. Christ, the end of the law for
righteousness. Christ, our holiness, our righteousness. our redemption,
our wisdom. Preach Christ, Christ, Christ.
That's what Paul's teaching. Now James is teaching them here.
And he says now, when you turn away, we all have a tendency
to think that The man who's being gracious and not telling us that
election is God's choice of whom He will and that He'll harden
whom He will, the man that sort of softens that down is being
gracious. James is saying, if you turn away, don't blame God's
glory for turning away. It's a lust of your own flesh.
It's you wanting to usurp authority and put yourself in God's seat
and do what only God can do. He sent us forth to say His Word. Now, he says, now let's bring
this thing down to where you started. And he says, every good
gift and every perfect gift, if your brother, your sister,
that sinner, that rebel, that harlot, that religious man, that
self-righteous man, that brother who believes Christ but is weak
in the faith and doesn't understand it, if they're going to be brought
to see that Christ is all our liberty, It's going to be by
God's gift. He's going to give it. He's going
to give it. It cometh down from the Father of lights. He's got
to turn on the light. With whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning. I said this to you Thursday night,
but how did God create life and light in the beginning, in the
first creation? How did He do it? And God said,
let there be light. His Word. Now, there is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning with God. The way He made the heavens
and the earth and all things that are therein is how He's
going to create life in a dead sinner by His Word. And the way
He's going to continue to grow you in grace, separate you from... Lord, I pray that you... He said,
God, I pray you would sanctify them by Thy Word. Thy word is
truth. Now he asks, James says, now
how did you begin? Verse 18, of his own will begat
he us with the word of truth. Just like he did, created the
heavens and the earth and life and light and all things that
are in, that's how he created you in the beginning. Now he
says, don't turn from this. Receive the engrafted word with
meekness. Be patient. Endure. Abraham endured
when God told him to offer Isaac, trusting that God was able to
raise him up from the dead. Those are the works that if you
don't have, you have a dead faith. It's the work of trusting God
to raise up from the dead. It's not works without morality
is dead. Rahab was a whore. She's a harlot. She owned a house of ill repute.
It's faith without Trust in God, continuing to trust God, waiting
on God to raise from the dead even as He raised you from the
dead. Without that patient continuance, trust in God, you can say you've
got faith all day. It's as vain as if a man came
to your door and knocked and said, I'm hungry and I need a
coat. And you said, well, take off. Be fed and be clothed. And
you didn't give him a coat and food. You'd look at that man
and say, you didn't... That's a lie. Your profession
is a lie. You didn't do that. He said if
you can't continue trusting God, simply preaching the word of
truth and trusting God to do the work, say you have faith
all you want to, it's a lie. It's a lie. Now, those begotten
by the will of God, this is how they're begotten. The light of
God. Christ shines the light into
the heart. Now, when he does this, look at James chapter 3.
When he does this, God sends this Word, this light into the
heart of the sinner. And when He quickens us and makes
us alive, gives us faith and repentance, we repent from everything
else we thought were good works, good fruits. We repent from all
methods and every word that we use, that muddled word of tongue-tied
men. We turn from that. We're not
double-minded anymore. We're not looking to God. And
while we're holding up the banner, we're out here with our hands
trying to rake people in and get them in by our own restraints.
Now we're just holding up the banner with both hands and saying,
I'm trusting you to do the work. Now, the man believes God, he's
repented toward God, he trusts Christ himself. And the only
work God has given you and I to do is to trust Christ, declare
the singular message of Christ, be witnesses of Him, of Him,
of Him, of Him, of Him crucified, clearly declare it. and trust
God, whether it's a sinner unconverted or it's a brother that's fallen.
This is the same method. Go to a sinner's restored, he's
reconciled, he's brought into union with God through the Word
of Truth. The same way you were begotten
in the beginning. Paul went to the Galatians. He said, you're
biting and devouring one another because you've turned from Christ
and you've turned to your flesh and what you've got to do now
to make yourself complete with God. And he said, you're biting
and devouring one another. And all that list of things he
said which is according to the flesh in Galatians 5 is what
they were doing spiritually against God. They were drunk with their
own wisdom. They were committing adultery
and fornication and lasciviousness and uncleanness toward God by
not trusting Him. But he said the spirit, the fruit
of the spirit is love, longsuffering, meekness, gentleness, kindness,
temperance. You wait on God to do the work.
It takes God to do this. You see, the work that God gives
us to do is to take our hands off the work. And men will say, well, that's
not work. You ask a believer if it is.
You ask a believer if he wrestles against that flag, if it's not
work to keep your hand off the ark. To remind yourself every
day, Uzzah, you don't have to touch this work, trust God to
do the work. You just hold up the banner,
that's what you're supposed to do. Now watch this, James 3,
11. James 3, 11. In James 3, he's
saying, don't be many masters. And he's saying what the Lord
said when he said, don't you say, have men call you rabbi,
master, master. Don't try to be God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Don't you try to do that. Now watch this, verse 11. Doth
a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren,
bear olive berries, either a vine, figs? So can no fountain both
yield salt water and fresh. Now this salt water, this cursing,
this is our flesh. This fresh water, this is the
work of God's grace. Who is a wise man and endued
with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation,
deportment, conduct, his works with meekness of wisdom. Now he's going to tell us what
that is. If you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory
not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from
above. It didn't come from God. But
it's earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife
is, there's confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that's
from above is first pure. It's pure. The lust of the fleshly
preacher, the man who's ran and hadn't been sent, is a covetousness
for the glory that belongs to the triune God of glory. That's
what James is addressing in this chapter. He can't speak the truth
plainly, clearly, because he doesn't believe God. period. He doesn't believe that the Word
is able to save your souls. Oh, he's got his doctrine down,
just like he's got his Ten Commandments down, and he uses both of them
as a whip. Both of them. But he don't believe
God's Word is able. Paul said, they told Titus, they
profess Him to know Him, but in works they deny Him. Now the
fleshly man will tell you, that's works of adultery and fornication
and lasciviousness. And then he'll commit to yoke
you and put you in the disciplinary church watch and everything else
to make you do what only God can make you do. And he's doing
what the Lord said. He's not doing it himself because
he's not trusting Christ who's the end of the law for righteousness.
And he's teaching you not to do it because he's teaching you
to look to your flesh. He can't do otherwise. God chooses
whom He will. He has mercy on whom He will.
Salvation is of God's will. It's not man's will. Christ redeemed
a particular number of people, giving Him before the world began,
and He has accomplished their salvation. And He's going to
call every one of them out by name. He's going to send forth
the Holy Spirit. He's going to create life and
repentance and faith and bring them to trust Him alone. And
when a man's been born of God, he knows this word of truth,
and he ceases using wisdom of words, handling the word of God
deceitfully, he speaks to needy sinners in honesty. This is one
of the things I want to go back with you and show you in the
Sermon on the Mount, but I'll give you this one this morning. When our
Lord said, don't forswear yourself, He said, don't forswear yourself,
let your yea be yea and your nay nay. He's saying, be honest
with men. Quit trying to say one thing
when you mean another. Be honest with men. In the Sermon
on the Mount, that's what he's talking about. This man that's
born of God, this pureness of heart is honesty that God creates
in the heart of a believer. Do you believe God's grace is
irresistible? Do you believe His grace is sovereign? This
works. God works this grace in the hearts
of His people. Either He does or He don't. He
works, this is the inner man that cannot turn away from God,
that cannot turn away from Him. He works this work of grace in
us. And it's pureness. He can't bring forth the corrupt
fruit of man's crafty wisdom of words. He's turned from that
and repents toward God. He once had envy toward God,
envy of men, and strife was in his heart toward God and men.
But now, He's been created anew by the Spirit of power and wisdom
and He doesn't attempt to force anything from sinners by His
own wisdom. Nothing. Nothing. Instead, verse
17, He deals peaceably. Gentle. easy to be entreated,
full of mercy, and good fruits. That's those fruit of the Spirit.
Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance. These are the good fruits. And
love, brethren, listen to me, love does not expose sin. Love doesn't look for sin. Love
doesn't set out to find sin and bring a sinner before the congregation
and make a public example of him. That's not what Christ said
do. He said bring it before the church,
not the one who trespass. And we're going to have to go
to that scripture too because our Lord, the only thing that's
a trespass against a believer, the Lord over and over said if
a man hits you on the side of the face, give him the other
one. And then does he turn around and say, now if he's hit you,
now you go to him and you say, I've got all against you. It's
not talking about injury to you personally. It's if he's turned
from your Lord. That's the only thing that's
a trespass against a believer. And when you go to him and talk
to him, what do you go talk to him about? How'd you turn from the truth?
How were you rebuked in your heart? How were you corrected
the first hour to fall at the feet of Christ and say, Lord,
have mercy on me? Somebody told you about the free
electing grace of God. Somebody told you about the sovereign,
irresistible grace of God. Somebody told you about the particular
redemption of Christ Jesus our Lord. Somebody told you about
the preserving grace of God, our faithful God. Go talk to
him. And if he won't hear you, take
two or three more with you. And y'all go rejoicing in the
gospel. And if you won't, tell the church. Brethren, when y'all
are all around this man, just tell this man about Christ. Tell
him all about Christ. Speak Christ. And if he still
won't hear you, there ain't nothing you can do for him. If he blasphemes
against the Holy Ghost, there's nothing else you can do. But I'll tell you what this partiality,
he says here that he doesn't deal in partiality, in hypocrisy. That work of going and bringing
up somebody's sin and trying to yoke them by telling them,
don't do this sin. And then bringing them up before
the church eventually and you're going to do your, dole out your
discipline on them. Let me tell you what that's going
to do. That's going to make it so that James deals with this
in chapter 2. It's going to make it so that
the man who appears to you and to all your brethren around you
to be richly adorned in good works, you're going to say to
that man, you sit right here. And that man that you've exposed
and uncovered his sins and he seems to be a poor, desperate,
needy sinner, you're going to say to him, you sit back there.
Oh, people wouldn't say that? Let's see. Now, you're welcome
to come to this table, the communion of our Lord, but if you have
any unconfessed sin in your heart, you can't come. Some of you can
sit here, the rest of you gotta sit back there. Our worthiness
is the Lord Jesus Christ alone. The Word of Truth is the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the Word with which we
were begotten in the beginning. Having begun in the Spirit, are
you now perfected by the flesh? By fleshly wisdom? By fleshly
deceit? By fleshly coercion? By fleshly
restraint? By fleshly repentance? By fleshly
putting on that garb of religion? Or is it by the Word of Truth?
Which one? Mercy rejoices against that fleshly
condemning judgment, that hypocrisy and that partiality. And it rejoices
by setting forth Christ in Him crucified, the worthiness of
sinner, the completeness, the holiness, our complete acceptance
with God. And the sum of these good fruits
is this, verse 18, the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace
of them that make peace. Not biting and devouring, not
encouraging sinners to cut their flesh, to cut this out, cut that
out, to be constantly upbraiding them with that. That's not how
it works. They bound that Gaterinian demoniac
and fetters and chains and everything else, and he just kept breaking
them off. He might not break them off in front of the religious
circle he's running in, but he's going somewhere and breaking
them off. In his heart, he's breaking them off. He don't trust
God, don't believe God. Beware of dogs, beware of evil
workers, beware of the concision, for we're the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no
confidence in the flesh. Henceforth, Paul said, we've
been born of God. We judge because we've been born
of God. We judge that if he died for
all, then all for whom he died were dead. If there was no other
way for me to have life than for Him to take my sin and to
die the death I deserve, I was dead. I was separated. I was
cut off from God. And if I live now, the only way
I live is because He's risen and He's entered into me and
He's created me anew and I have life. And now I don't live unto
myself anymore. I don't go around trying to glory
in that which I once gloried in. I've renounced it. I've turned
my back on it. I thought it was gained to me,
and now I see it was lost to me the whole time. It was counting
against me. I want to win Christ to be found
in Him, not having my own righteousness, but the righteousness which is
of God by faith in Him. I want that righteousness. And
He says, and because we've been born of Him, and because we live
by Him, and we're crucified to the world, we've put off that
old man with his fruit-picking eye, and looking at the flesh,
and calling what you do or don't do the evil or the good fruits.
We've put that off, and henceforth we know no man after the flesh. We know these fruits by the Spirit
of grace, by the Spirit of God. The Lord said, You are they which
justify yourselves before men. But God knoweth your hearts,
for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in sight
of God. He told the Pharisee, You judge
after the flesh. He said, I don't judge a man
after the flesh. I'm looking at the heart. The real man. I'm not looking at this dead
thing that's going to go back to the dust. I want to show you
this. I don't think I'm going to have
time. Alright, we'll close here and
I'll try to show you the rest of this another time.