The devil is precisely aware of the gift of salvation that God extends to sinners by the death and Resurrection of His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and this causes him to be filled with disgust towards our God and towards us. For him, to know that we are saved eternally by what Christ Jesus has done for us apart from our obedience to the law is what the devil hates the most about Christians. For we have been reconciled to God through Christ, our sins have been cast into the depths of the sea, and repentant sinners have a higher place in the kingdom of heaven than the devil ever had before he fell into destruction. That is why the devil attacks us, because we have something he never had the right to. The devil was a servant of God, but we are children of God. And Christ is now our good Shepherd, who leads us to the streams of living water, and still among the flock there are wolves in sheep’s clothing, attempting to steal us away.
The flock that our Lord refers to in this text is the Church militant. The part of the Christian church that is on earth, which awaits the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, or to be united with the Lord upon their death. And while on earth, the devil still has the power of deception. The ability to persuade Christians away from the true doctrine of the church with the intention of causing false belief. The word doctrine has gained a negative reputation among the ill-informed. Some treat doctrine as simply an add-on that men have made to the teachings of Jesus. This is simply a confusion between true doctrine and false doctrine. Doctrine that is true is good because it comes solely from the Word of God. For Saint Paul says in Second Timothy, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine.” The word doctrine simply means teaching, and those teachings are simply what the Word of God says applied to us. Therefore, true doctrine is not the invention of man, but comes from the Word of God alone.
And so, returning to our text at hand, Christ says that the devil chooses to deceive us within the context of the Christian Church. To deceive Christians into false belief, he must first inspire incorrect doctrine. As again we return to Saint Paul in first Timothy when he says, “Now, the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to the deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” And Jesus warned us that these doctrines of demons come through false prophets who mislead the people, giving an appearance of teaching only the truth, and yet at root it is all falsehood and lies about what the word of God says and means. †
And now the question is, how do we know that our understanding of God has been shaped by false prophets? Our Lord gives us two ways of knowing and we will address them individually. First, God gives us the Holy Scriptures, which are His Word. And second, Jesus says that these false prophets are known by their fruit.
By making this first claim, I am not saying that you must be an expert in the Bible before you can determine what good and bad doctrines are. Instead, we should know the Word of God to be true by faith and be able to check what we have heard against the Word of God. We should ask ourselves whether that preacher online, on television, or in church is actually saying what the Word of God has already said. If that preacher or teacher has said what the Word of God says, or if he or she contradicts what the overall message of the Scriptures is, then he or she is a deceiver. For example, saying that God is beyond any gender or that salvation begins with God, but ends with our own efforts, or that when the Bible talks about the sacraments, baptism and the Lord’s Supper do not do anything for us. These are all things that the word of God clearly teaches against. And simply by reading the plain words of the Bible, we can see that they are lies, and therefore protect ourselves from their deception.
The second way Jesus highlights is by their fruits. This criterion is used when it appears to us that everything they have said seems pretty normal. They seem to say what the Bible says for the most part. In those cases, we see their conduct as it is produced from the heart. Do teachers and preachers of the church truly live in the way that is God-pleasing, as outlined in the word of God? Do they encourage gentleness and self-control, but are filled with anger and discuss with those around them? Did they preach about giving to the church and yet fill their own pockets with the money the church receives? As our Lord says to us in our gospel reading, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” And that is the final test: does the tree that speaks the word of God bear fruit that is commanded by the Lord, or does it bear things that are contrary to the Word of God? Every teacher of the church is a sinner, except Jesus Christ, and when the teacher and preacher sins, do they bear the primary fruit of faith that is repentance? And to this, we are reminded that no good tree can bear bad fruit. No Christian preacher can be without repentance
Just as the true, genuine teachers of the church must bear good fruit worthy of Christian faith, so must Christians also. And those good fruits must come from the tree that is planted in and finds its water in the well springs of the Word of God. For as we see in the first of the book of Psalms, “His delight is in the law of the Lord; he shall be like a tree, planted by the river of water, that brings forth fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.” It is all because of the Word of the Lord that we prosper and bear fruit for Him.
It is for our sake that He has saved us from our sins and given us eternal life, so that the Lord has planted us along the stream of the baptismal Waters where we have been cleansed and redeemed and claimed to be as His own. And we are fed with the fruits of His cross, that is, His body and blood to eat and to drink. These are all things He gives to us by faith and the Word of God that we may bear fruit.
So when the false prophets and teachers try to disguise themselves as sheep, we have no reason to be deterred because we have Christ and His Word that bestows on us salvation. We can trust in His promises because they cannot be changed or manipulated by the incorrect sayings of men. What God says is eternal and is good forever. Let the false teachers continue their lies because we will not listen. For it is God’s word that is true; God’s word is far better, and it is God’s Word in Christ that saves us. Amen.
† The Christian Year of Grace, Johann Spangenberg p. 272 q.19
St. John's and Grace Evangelical Lutheran Parish 