By Their Fruits

Today's Reading

Read Matthew 7:15-23 carefully — the closing of the Sermon on the Mount: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits... On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'"

Then read Matthew 24:23-25: "Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand."

Read 2 Corinthians 11:13-15: "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness."

Finally read 1 Timothy 3:1-7 — Paul's qualifications for elders. Notice that almost every requirement is about character, not gifting.

Reflection

Begin with what Jesus does not say.

He does not say false prophets are easy to spot. The phrase "sheep's clothing" is doing real work. The wolves do not look like wolves. They look like sheep. They preach in our pulpits, write our books, lead our worship, fill our conferences. Sometimes they themselves do not yet know they are wolves. Spotting them, Jesus implies, is going to take more than first impressions.

He does not say false prophets do not work miracles. Matthew 7:22-23 contains one of the most disturbing statements Jesus ever made: people will come on the last day citing prophecy, exorcism, and mighty works performed in his name, and he will say "I never knew you." Matthew 24 doubles down: false christs will perform "great signs and wonders." This means we cannot evaluate ministry by its visible results. Crowd size is not a fruit. Healings are not a fruit, by themselves. Even prophetic accuracy is not, by itself, a fruit. We have been told.

What he does say is by their fruits you will recognize them.

What did Jesus mean by "fruits"? The Bible answers itself. Galatians 5:22-23 lists the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Note: every item on the list is a character trait. None is a competence. None is a result. The fruit Jesus tells us to look for is not what a leader produces in events but what the Holy Spirit has produced in the leader. Is this person, in the long arc of their life, growing in love? In joy? In peace? In patience? In humility? In faithfulness? In self-control? Is their household a place of grace or fear? Is their staff turnover the kind of turnover good leadership produces, or the kind that bad leadership leaves behind?

This is why Paul, when he writes the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3, lists almost no skills. He does not say the elder must be eloquent, charismatic, or brilliant. He says the elder must be "above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive..." Almost everything is character. Almost nothing is gifting. Paul knew, as Jesus knew, that gifting without character is the gospel's most dangerous combination.

J.I. Packer captured the principle precisely: "The character of a leader is not separate from his teaching; it is the most important commentary on his teaching." A leader's life is the footnote to every sermon. If the footnote contradicts the sermon, the sermon should not be read.

Jonathan Edwards spent years learning this the hard way. The First Great Awakening produced both genuine converts and dramatic counterfeits. Edwards refused to evaluate either by intensity. In Religious Affections he wrote: "There is no sign or token whatsoever, plain or evident, by which we can certainly know true godliness from counterfeit, but only the constant practice of holy duties." A single conference. A single sermon. A single moment of viral testimony. None of these are sufficient. The test is the constant practice — what is true after a decade, two decades, in private as in public. This is why short-term excitement is no substitute for long-term observation, and why almost every Christian leader who has fallen catastrophically in the last twenty years was someone whose closest staff already knew what was happening.

Charles Spurgeon, who watched English nonconformist Christianity drift in his lifetime and finally walked out of the Baptist Union over it, refused to be impressed by externals: "The garments of a sheep are sometimes the disguise of a wolf. Do not be content with externals. The Lord looketh on the heart, and so should we, as far as we are able." Spurgeon understood that a faithful pulpit and a faithful pastor are not the same thing — and that the church which evaluates only the pulpit will eventually be sold to a wolf.

What does this mean practically?

1. Crowds and platforms are not validation. Paul says Satan disguises himself as an angel of light; his ministers as servants of righteousness. They will look impressive. That is the design of the disguise.

2. Miracles are not validation. Matthew 7:22-23 should be sobering for every charismatic, every Pentecostal, every revivalist, every Christian who has ever pointed to "what God is doing" as proof. God does many things. Some of what looks like God doing things will turn out, on the last day, not to have been him.

3. Character over time is the test we have been given. Boring, slow, hard-to-fake Christian character — over years, in private, especially toward those who can do nothing for the leader. This is why the New Testament keeps insisting on plurality of leadership, on accountability, on the slow vetting of elders. The body of Christ is supposed to evaluate its leaders together, over time, by Jesus's own criteria.

This week we will work through the harder cases — the prophet of 1 Kings 13, who is genuinely sent by God and is then deceived by another "prophet" and dies for it; Paul's confrontation with the "super-apostles" in 2 Corinthians; Spurgeon's Down-Grade Controversy; the modern names you can fill in yourself. Today, simply: Jesus has given us the test. He told us in advance. Most failures of discernment are not failures of information. They are failures of nerve to apply the test we already have.

Going Deeper

Take one Christian leader whose voice currently shapes your thinking — author, pastor, podcaster, teacher. Ask the Galatians 5 questions of them, as best you can know: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Where you cannot answer, that is data. Where the answer is uncomfortable, that is also data. The point is not to start a witch hunt. The point is to begin running, on the people whose voices most shape you, the test Jesus already told us to run.