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The entire AOC Sunday Report can be found RIGHT HERE!
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The
Eighth Sunday after Trinity.
The
Collect.
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O
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GOD, whose
never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth; We
humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us
those things which are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle
Romans viii. 12.
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B
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RETHREN, we are debtors, not to
the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall
die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall
live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have
received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit
himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and
if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be
that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
The Gospel
St. Matthew vii. 15.
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B
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EWARE 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 can 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. Not every one
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
The Master
whom we follow determines the destination to which we are going. If we follow
Satan, we shall end up in the same fires and anguish as that Old Dragon. But if
we follow Christ, we shall enjoy the blissful company of God and His Angels
forever after.
The ancient Lectionary takes us to the question of inheritance as the children
of God, and also the KIND of children we should be in the production of fruit.
The epistle teaches us, in no uncertain terms, that there are no people more
chosen of God than those who have been adopted, through the blood of Christ,
into His family as sons and daughters. Of course, in following Christ, we must
not follow Him all the way to Bethany and stop short of Calvary. We must take
up our crosses daily and follow Him all of the way down the Via Dolorosa – the
Way of Suffering.
Our sermon text is taken from the Gospel lesson in Matthew 7, beginning at the
15 verse. In this passage we discover the strong similes and metaphors of false
prophets being like wolves in sheep’s clothing; and of trees that bring forth
the fruits of their natures, and some that must be cut down for failure to
produce fruit. And our text concludes with a dire warning to those who
proliferate in the Christian community today – hypocrites! We will
address the text in three parts:
1.
False
Prophets – who are they and how shall we recognize them;
2.
The
trees of good and bad fruit – how shall we distinguish them;
3.
Hypocrites
– who are they and how to know them.
1.
FALSE PROPHETS: In our text we read: BEWARE of
false prophets, which come to you in
sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. First of all, what is a prophet, and how shall we know them?, "And
if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not
spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow
not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but
the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him."
(Deuteronomy 18:21-22) So, do you believe that prophets of the Lord are similar
to fortune-tellers in forecasting future events? Not at all, but a prophet of
the Lord will say those things that the Lord has spoken in the Spirit. The
prophet of today will not speak a word contrary to those uttered by the
prophets of old, for God does not change. Any who know and believe the Word of
God are prophets of sorts. How can that be? Because the Holy Word of God tells
us what God’s judgment is against all kinds of sin. If we judge by God’s
perfect standard of righteousness, we can conclude, as a prophet, the answer
God will deliver for such sin. A prophet speaks, preaches, and teaches the will
of God as recorded in Holy Scripture.
We are to confirm every word spoken from the pulpit by Holy Scripture to see if
these things be true. I can assure you with every bone of my body that I will
never intentionally teach something contrary to the Word of God INTENTIONALLY;
however, I am a mortal man, and mortal men are subject to errors of judgment
and understanding. Therefore, a well versed and informed Christian must test
all things spoken by me, or any other clergyman, by that Plumb line of God’s
Word. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether
they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
(1 John 4:1) Prove all things; hold fast that which
is good. (1 Thess 5:21) A true
Christian will study the Scriptures diligently, in fact, so well that he will
be able to recognize errors and inconsistencies in doctrine being preached. He
will therefore no suffer deceit. The false prophet speaks smoothly and
convincingly. He ACTS like a loving Christian, and he may even use the Word of
God wrongly to achieve some deceit. He will emphasize the offering plate far
more than the cross of Jesus. He may have a wonderful smile to hide insidious
and sharp teeth beneath. The false prophet is a minister of the devil and, like
his mentor, is a ravening wolf. He doesn’t kill just to eat, but out of sport.
America has a disproportionately large number of such scoundrels let loose in
our pulpits today. BEWARE, friends.
2.
The
trees of good and bad fruit – how shall we distinguish them: We are told to use sight and taste. If it
looks like an orange, it tastes like an orange, then it MUST be an orange.
Oranges do not grow on apple trees. The kind of tree determines the fruit. The
kind of heart determines the soul of a Christian, or an imposter. The fruit
described relates to our works as sons and daughters of God. Are our works
worthy of the title, Christian? We have misapplied grace and faith to the
exclusion of good works in our day. Surely, we know that works are not the
means of our salvation; but just as surely we should also know that our
salvation should be evidenced by works worthy of the Name of Christ. “Bring
forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance.” (Luke 3:8a) “Even
so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say,
Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I
will shew thee my faith by my works. (James 2:17-18) There has been a
growing error being taught over the last several decades that all a sinner
needs to do is “call upon the name of the Lord” and that ends the struggle.
While it is true that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, it
is not true that a mere utterance of that phrase will suffice. The utterance
must be a genuine and sincere confession of faith from the heart and not the
head. It must be followed with evidence of salvation. A new man must be in
evidence following the confession.
God gave us ‘hands’ for a reason. The head is
our legislative branch, the hands our executive branch, and the heart our
judicial branch to determine right and wrong. It is the hands that produce
fruit. They cultivate, plant the trees, and care for the trees. At due season,
they harvest the fruit. In the Holy Land, trees are taxed – not the fruit of
the trees; therefore, the lord of the vineyard will cut down a tree that does
not produce in order to save revenue. The economy of Heaven is not unlike the
same. If we produce no fruit, of what earthly good are we? The mind conceives a
good project to perform. If it is in conformance to that Mind which was in
Christ, the Judicial Branch – the Heart – will uphold that decision of the
Legislative Branch. It is then that the Executive Branch completes the good
work willed by the head. If our hands are idle, we had best find
productive labor for them in short order; else we starve or shall be cut off.
Faith is the electrical impulses that connect the three branches across the
synapses of Wisdom, Love, and Action.
In the Museum of
Amsterdam hangs a painting of several old Dutch Burgomasters who had
distinguished themselves by some notable service to the people and community.
In each of the paintings, there may be as many as a dozen faces and, though the
canvas is a bit crowded for space, the hands are also depicted in every case.
All one sees are heads and hands. In spite of a lack of space, the artist was
very careful to include the hands with different gestures of each and detail as
complete as eyes and noses of the heads. I believe the point of the artist is
to depict the full character of the men honored. The heads alone did not reveal
complete character – what they thought, what they saw, what they felt; but the
addition of hands depicted that the good works of these men followed the good
thoughts that they conceived. The same is true of the Christian who has taken
on the Mind that was in Christ.
There is a wonderful discussion of the
head-only Christian in the classical work, The Choir Invisible, by James
Allen Lane:
Some time, wandering in a thinned wood, you may have happened upon an
old vine, the seed of which had long ago been dropped and had sprouted in an
open spot where there was no timber. Every May, in response to Nature's joyful
bidding that it yet shall rise, the vine has loosed the thousand tendrils of
its hope, those long, green, delicate fingers searching the empty air. Every
December you may see these turned stiff and brown, and wound about themselves
like spirals or knotted like the claw of a frozen bird. Year after year the
vine has grown only at the head, remaining empty-handed ; and the head itself,
not being lifted always higher by anything the hands have seized, has but moved
hither and thither, back and forth, like the head of a wounded snake in a path.
Thus every summer you may see the vine, fallen back and coiled upon itself, and
piled up before you like a low green mound, its own tomb; in winter a black
heap, its own ruins. So, it often is with the poorest, who live on at the head,
remaining empty-handed ; fallen in and coiled back upon themselves, their own
inescapable tombs, their own unavertible ruins.
Our hands must follow the good will of the mind in finding good works upon
which to light and to grasp in order to bear fruit pleasing to the Lord of the
Vineyard.
3.
Hypocrites
– who are they and how to know them: First of all, like us get our vocabulary understood. What is the
meaning of hypocrite? The word is derived from the Greek text - (hupokrinomai);
an actor under an assumed character (stage-player), i.e. (figurative) a dissembler
(“hypocrite”):- hypocrite. (Strong’s) Those who are constantly
performing great things and seem to be very godly often harbor a vacuum for
faith. All of the good works, good acting, and posing of the hypocrite will
gain no favor at all in Heaven. Good works do not exist apart from faith. The
hypocrite that says all of the right things and lives like the world is only an
actor. By the same token, every man that shoulders a weapon and wears an
impeccable uniform is not necessarily a soldier. We see churches in America
that are supposedly ‘filled with the Holy Ghost.” They make a great show of
supposed spiritual gifts and demonstrations. The worship is not peaceful,
but exhausting. Many of the same people who were so moved by the Holy Spirit on
Sunday morning are seen to be moved by the spirit of the bar on Monday.
What is wrong with this picture? First, their worship is not reverent and
worthy of the Church. Secondly, their hearts were only ‘acting’ as hypocrites
in being shallow on faith and big on appearances. How is your heart, friend?
May we be a people wary of false prophets and so thoroughly
knowledgeable of the Word of God that it will be quite difficult to deceive us.
Let us be careful of wondering too far from our protecting Shepherd and into
the mountain crevices where wolves lurk. Be careful that the church you attend
is one that places Christ at its heart and center – a Church that is reverent
in worship and true to Scripture in its teaching and doctrine.
Let us be sure that the works of our hands represent the thoughts of our hearts
and not become stale salt that has been in the shaker so long that we are
clumps that cannot be applied properly. Are we thus?
