The 8th Sunday after Trinity – Historic Lectionary – Matthew 7:15-23 – August 11, 2019
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Although our paraments and vestments stay green all the way from June to November, this long Trinity Season has nonetheless been divided historically into four distinct parts.
The part that we’re in right now is called St. John’s tide and it started two weeks ago. In a normal year when Easter doesn’t fall so late, we would usually enter this season around June 24th, which is where this time of the year gets its name, because that’s the day that the Church celebrates and marks the nativity or the birth of St. John the Baptist.
St. John’s tide has as its focus the Christian life, how we live both before God and before one another. The first part of the Trinity Season teaches what the Church is, that the Church is made up of beggars like Lazarus, of sinners forgiven, of rebels who have been made sons of the Most High through nothing more and nothing less that the Lord’s own mercy and grace.
St. John’s tide now builds on that foundation, by changing the question from what is the Church, to how do we live as the Church? That’s what this time is all about. And so to help you even further, the Church summarizes for you all of the readings that you’ll hear from now to the end of September by pointing you again to this Season’s namesake, to St. John, and more importantly to one of his greatest confessions, that, “He (Christ) must increase, but I (John) must decrease.” (John 3:30)
If you can remember that, then you can have all of the right footings for what you hear during St. John’s tide. For this is what the Christian life is really all about, “He must increase, and I must decrease.” This is not about you, this is about Jesus. This is about life in Him, not life in yourselves. This is about what He gives, not what you think you need.
For as the Collect of the Day would remind us, we cannot do anything that is good without the Lord, and so we ask in this prayer for Him to increase, to give us His Holy Spirit that we might decrease and so think and do more and more what is right, and true, and good.
This is why you come to Church, this is what Bible Study and Sunday School are all about, this is why we bear with one another, forgive one another, live at peace with one another, for He must increase, and we must decrease.
So it is with St. John’s great confession still ringing in our ears that we hear the Lord Christ speak to us in the Holy Gospel, “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15-16)
False teaching will never tell you that it is false. Heresy will never announce itself as heresy. The False Prophet, therefore, looks like a sheep, he looks like a Christian, a kind and well-meaning Missouri-Synod pastor.
And so if you want to judge by appearances, then you run the risk of getting eaten alive. If you want to judge a prophet as true or false depending on how nice he is, or how big or how small church is, if you want to judge according to his politics or how much you like him and his personality, then you run the risk of getting eaten alive.
The fruit of a prophet, of a pastor, is not his personality. but his preaching, it is found in the words that he speaks at the pulpit, at the altar rail, at the bedside, and in Bible class. That is what you ought to judge. That is what you must pay attention to above all else. For at the end of the day, no pastor, no matter how orthodox and faithful you think he is, no pastor can truly be trusted.
The Word of God clearly teaches that all men are sinful, the psalmist says that all men are liars, that the heart is deceitful above all things. (Rom. 3:23; Ps. 116:11; Jer. 17:9) That, of course, includes pastors. They are given to same temptations and weaknesses as you are. So perhaps out of fear for house, home, food, and family a pastor will fail to teach you the whole counsel of God. Maybe for the sake of his reputation, he’ll gloss over those harder-hitting words of the Law. And maybe he’s just ignorant, maybe he just doesn’t know, all of us have blind spots and that includes pastors.
So on this side of glory, you can never really be completely comfortable as you sit in the pew listening to the sermon. The teaching of the Church is an active thing, and because our enemies are so many we must be on guard. We must pay closer attention therefore, as the writer of Hebrews says, to what we have heard. (Heb. 2:1)
You should not completely trust your pastor. You should completely trust the Lord and His Word. His Word cannot lie, it is not deceitful, it is not a wolf in sheep’s clothing. His Word is not concerned about its reputation, its income or popularity. His Word is concerned with you, with your life, your salvation, your deliverance from death, the devil, and every wolf who might eat you alive.
Jesus tells you that you will recognize the prophets by their fruit. You will recognize them by their teaching, by their word.
A simple way to think about that during St. John’s tide is this, does the pastor’s preaching lead to the fruit of Christ become more and us becoming less? Or does it do something very different?
The false prophets of Jeremiah’s day who preached not the Word of God but their own hearts, made by their teaching the Lord into a small and tiny Lord, and so man into a great and mighty man.
They taught that the Lord’s wrath was a joke, that it was nothing more than a teaching tool, but that it wasn’t coming, Instead, the Lord just loves you, and He even loves and approves of your sin, certainly He would never judge you, He would never accuse you, He would never show you another way.
So the false teachers make the Lord into nothing, they make him into a father who no longer wishes to be a father, who has given up on his children and now just wants to be their tag-along friend. So also they make man into a mighty man, man who forgives himself, who accepts himself, who lives for himself.
Beware of false prophets. Learn to ask and to seek out where such teachings lead, to examine the fruit. Does this Word increase Christ crucified for sinners, or does it increase you acceptable in your own sight?
Learn, O Christian what the Word of God is doing, learn what it is here for. It is not here to pat your ego, to make you feel better about yourself, or to teach you your best life now. This Word is here to die for you, to die with you, to poke into hearts and uncover even the deepest and darkest places, To shine a light on your guilt and to call a thing for what it is, you have not been faithful, you have not paid attention, you have sought to make yourself everything and force the Lord to just tag-along. Repent.
The Lord allows false prophets to sneak in, He lets the wheat grow up with the weeds, the sheep and goats to live in the same house. He lets such wolves come, not so that you would be eaten alive, but so that you might hear and turn to the true Shepherd, that you might hear more clearly his true voice.
As we heard last week, the Lord leads the 12 and the 4000 out into the wilderness to show them their weakness. This is how it is in the Church Militant. Though it is a mystery, we also know that it is His pure mercy to show us our weaknesses and to give us a beggar’s faith, not faith that delights in its strength, but weak and fragile saints who delight in the Lord, weak and fragile sheep who learn to cry always, “Lord, have mercy.”
For this is not about you, this is about Jesus. And He does not fail. He is for you and He is present and He is full of grace and mercy in His Holy Word. This cannot fail you. Let us be sheep, let us be weak. For we have a true Shepherd, and He is faithful, He will surely do it.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.