Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey everyone. We have been talking about the Sermon on the Mount on the Mark Clark podcast for the last seven weeks. And this is week eight. And today we're diving into one of Jesus most powerful teachings on deception and truth. We're looking at false prophets, self deception, and the way bad ideas can take us completely off track if we are not vigilant. So we're going to explore Jesus warning to beware, the significance of recognizing good fruit, and the incredible importance of standing firm in what is true. So just as a reminder, this podcast is brought to you by the Thrive Podcast Network. And I want you all to know because there's lots of questions people are asking me about this.
Mark Clark [00:00:44]:
The new book that I wrote is coming out fresh off the printer February 18th. It is available, but jump over to Amazon. The Problem of Life. It deals with all of our stuff in life, gets into what it means to be human, where we came from, where going, our relationships, our work, our everything about how we relate to God and the longing and truth within us of how we find true happiness and joy. It is an awesome ride. It's a great journey. So jump over to Amazon and grab that. The Problem of Life.
Mark Clark [00:01:14]:
All right, let's jump in and see how we can apply these timeless lessons in our everyday lives. Here's a passage that Jesus hits is very important. And what it is is he. He hits something that's not really all that exciting for a preacher to get up and preach about, because listen to what he says. Let me just read the. And then we'll get into the specifics of it. We'll see how much we can get into before our time is up. Matthew, chapter 7, verse 15 to 20.
Mark Clark [00:01:40]:
It's interesting because these are the last two sermons in the Sermon on the Mount. So this week and then next week. And Jesus ends the whole Sermon on the Mount by talking about two ways that we can be deceived. And next week's is all about the fact that we can deceive ourselves. We can actually be deceived by deceiving ourselves. And some of us will get in front of God on Judgment Day and he's going to say, away from I never knew you. And people are gonna go, yeah, but I did all these things. He's gonna say, yeah, but inside you didn't really know me.
Mark Clark [00:02:09]:
Externally, you did all these things, but you didn't really know me. So you can be self deceived, you can deceive yourself. But that's not what this week's about. This week's about the Fact that other people can deceive you. So listen to what he says. Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit, you will recognize them.
Mark Clark [00:02:31]:
Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit, you will recognize them. So here's what I mean. It's like Jesus starts on about these false prophets, and it's not like me as a preacher. I'm like, oh, I'm so excited. Like, there's some sermons that are fun to preach.
Mark Clark [00:03:00]:
There's some sermons that, hey, we're gonna have some fun. We're gonna. And there's others that are like, oh, man, this one's kind of heavy. And it's more like teachy. And there's a lot of content. It's like. It's a grind. And that's this one.
Mark Clark [00:03:13]:
Because it really is kind of this heavy content where we gotta discern. And the other thing about it is, you know, Bayside Church, we're like a positive church. We like to talk about what we're for rather than what we're against, right? And most of the time, 99% of the time, that's a really good thing. But sometimes what we realize what Jesus is saying is, you gotta talk about what you're against because we have to be able to discern. And sometimes in our culture, we're not really discerning. Well, we're such pragmatic, practical people that we don't know a bad idea when we see it. And so we have a generation of people who, if they can't recognize bad ideas, they're not gonna understand and they're gonna actually easily be deceived. And so one of my jobs as a pastor is.
Mark Clark [00:03:55]:
Is to shepherd the way that you think. So you can't be easily deceived. And that's what Kind of Today is all about. So listen how Jesus starts it. He says this. Watch out. Or the Greek and Aramaic for beware, beware. He starts out with a warning, right? And those of us who know, know the power of the warning.
Mark Clark [00:04:17]:
My mom, when I was a little kid, I had this game I used to play where I get on my rollerblades, and I would tie a rope around my buddy's bicycle seat, and he would just Rip off. And I would, like, just hold on to the back of this massive rope. It was like 20, 30ft long. And he would go around these curves, and I would, like, shoot out and get a lot of speed. And my mom was like, dude, I saw you doing that. Do not do that ever again. Why? Because you're gonna get hurt. I'm like, da, what do moms know, right? And so one day, I remember he ripped around this corner, and I shot out of my rollerblades, and right in front of me was a car, and it was shooting at me like this.
Mark Clark [00:04:57]:
And my only choice, either I was gonna go up over it like Marty McFly, but it didn't have, like, a. It didn't have a convertible. So I just went whoom. And I went down on my back and I just skidded along the ground and just stopped. And the car stopped over me, and I was like. And my back was all cut up. And I remember, like, getting, like. For weeks, it was all scabbing over somebody, like, you know, but it was like, that was.
Mark Clark [00:05:24]:
And I remember that moment. I'm like, why? Why is it important that you listen to the warnings? My mom sat me down and said, beware, because hurt is going to come and you will not flourish if you don't pay attention to my warnings. And this is what Jesus is doing here. Jesus isn't all just kind of fluffy. And, you know, everyone's, oh, Jesus, such a nice guy. Be like, Jesus, da, da, da. It's like, yes, he was a nice guy. He's awesome.
Mark Clark [00:05:49]:
He loved people. But they also crucified him. Why? Because he rebelled and he was appointed preacher, who said, guys, you gotta beware of some stuff. There's some things that are gonna actually take you off course. And so he says, beware. Beware of what? False? What, prophets? Beware of people like me. See, here's the thing. Next week, in the passage, you gotta be aware of yourself.
Mark Clark [00:06:26]:
You gotta be very careful that you don't deceive yourself into thinking you're actually a follower of Jesus. But you're not. This week, you gotta beware of people like me, people who can manipulate you from a stage, people who are in the lights and they're leading you and they got a Bible sometimes in their hand. They're not obviously bad people. They're not obviously heretics. In fact, he talks about the idea they come to you in, what, sheep's clothing? But they lead you in bad ideas. And you can't really tell all that much. See, this week's about being careful of influencers, people on the Internet who have your attention, who can give you theology and philosophy and worldview and ideas.
Mark Clark [00:07:23]:
And here's the beware. Here's what I love about the Watch out immediately. Jesus says, stop being so naive. We're all so naive. We wake up in the morning and we like to think that everybody's just like us, that nobody wakes up twisting their mustache, trying to figure out how they're going to deceive you. But there are deceivers who wake up and they love the idea that they can trap you and give you bad information and deceive you. There are people like this, and they are even among us. Some of them go to our church.
Mark Clark [00:07:59]:
Some of them. Some of them. I think we've got one. She's like, I've been found out. Some of them are in your small group, but they're definitely online and they pitch all kinds of ideas to you about politics and philosophy and theology. And you watch their TikTok videos and you watch their Instagram reels, or you watch their YouTube channels, or you listen to their podcasts, or you listen to their music. And they are out to actually. And so Jesus going, I need you guys to watch out, have your eyes open.
Mark Clark [00:08:34]:
Not everybody is just like you. Not everyone's just a nice person trying to get through life. There are some people that you gotta watch out for, and they're in the world and they're among us. And they were in the early church, too. They're people who are teachers and pastors and preachers and bloggers and authors and leaders and worship leaders. And they. And they were in the early church. I mean, half of the.
Mark Clark [00:09:01]:
Half of the letters of the New Testament are written to churches who. People were getting in and deceiving these young believers, right? That's what Galatians is written to. That's what Second Peter is written to. That's what First Peter is written to. That's what. That's what Paul talks about in the Book of Acts, I'm going to leave you. And what does he say? Wolves are going to come in and deceive you? Because what we are in is a war of ideas constantly. I read this from a scholar named D.A.
Mark Clark [00:09:40]:
carson years ago. He said, listen, one generation believes the gospel, the next generation assumes the gospel, the following generation denies the gospel. See, if I don't. Now that I have high school daughters, I'm constantly aware of the necessity of what we do up here for 35 minutes. That's my allotted time. So I'M constantly aware of what we're saying and why. Because I can't. The minute I get up here and assume that you know what the gospel is, the life, death, resurrection of Jesus is the only thing that saves you.
Mark Clark [00:10:30]:
Not your works, nothing you do, no religion, nothing. Jesus is God who became a human being, lived a perfect life in your place that you could never live, died on a cross, taking on the wrath of God, being fully satisfied in him so it would never fall on you, and then rising again. And your job is to repent and receive that grace with faith in that finished work on your behalf. And the minute I stop preaching that, the minute I assume it, the next generation will lose it. We are one generation away from the gospel being lost. And that's why we gotta constantly come back to these simple ideas over and over and over again that people say, why do we come back and just talk about Jesus every single week? Because the minute we assume it, we actually lose the gospel. So here's the truth. There are people trying to fool you, and there's people trying to fool the next generation.
Mark Clark [00:11:28]:
Go on Facebook, go on Instagram, read. I mean, you go on, listen to a presidential debate. Not that any politician ever lies, but there's these people called fact checkers. Have you ever watched a presidential debate and then on the side watched fact checkers, right? It's like, I was in China on July. He was not in China. He was nowhere near China. You know, it's like, what Fact checkers? Because everybody is out to give you fake news. Everyone's out there trying to get you information that will benefit them.
Mark Clark [00:12:10]:
Have you ever. You cannot believe everything you read on the Internet, right? And all you guys with Facebook, I'm talking to you. How many times have my, you know, our parents send a be careful, look at this thing on Facebook. And you're like, good gosh, mom, that's not real. There's no lizard people. It's like, there's all this information. It's bad. Or you see a picture and it's like, look, there's a revolution going on in this country right now.
Mark Clark [00:12:48]:
And they're like, actually, this photo was taken in 2002 and it was a gathering of whole body. And you're like, what is going on? Where? How am I going to get right information? Because the world is out to give you bad information. Not only about politics, but especially about God and especially about yourself and the nature of who you are and the essence of who you are and what your job is in the world and how Salvation works. And so I remember I was at a small group, I was invited to this church years ago. I was like a two year old Christian. I don't even think I'd started going to church yet. And they go, can you come to our small group? It's like a bunch of 20 year old dudes. I'll just sit around for two hours and chat.
Mark Clark [00:13:29]:
I'm like, cool. And they're like, we'd like you to teach. So I brought my Bible and I just kind of opened it up and then I. And then I kind of set aside and I taught complete heresy for 45 straight minutes. I was like, just talking total nonsense, non biblical things, anti Christian stuff. But in the midst of it, I'd tell all these jokes and I'd tell stories and I'd get the guy to play keys. And by the end of it, I said, let's pray. And everyone's like, yes, let's pray.
Mark Clark [00:14:04]:
And I just said, no, let's not pray. You all just bought absolute heresy for me. And no one even questioned it. And they never let me teach again. They're like, bro, maybe that's end of your experimental time. But now notice this word here, false. This is important because there's actually, there's real prophets. Like, like there's a gift of profit, right? Ephesians, chapter four, you know, apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher.
Mark Clark [00:14:38]:
There's people whose job, and this is one of my gifts, one of my spiritual gifts. I don't have many, but one of them is to do a prophetic role. And what I mean by prophetic role is not foretelling the future, but forth telling the word of God. Like my job is to open the Bible and just tell you straight. But I'm not as much of a teacher as I am a prophet, right? Which is why I'm like, I'm not good at systemat. This is why I'm not very good at the bulletin, right? Like why you'll see all these four points and they're really good. And you'll have to go to another campus to figure out what the information is because I literally don't know how to systematize ideas like a teacher can. But what I can do is preach it into your life in a way where you feel like you and I are the only people in the room.
Mark Clark [00:15:29]:
And I'm reading your mail because there's no possible way he could have known that. How many times has that ever happened to you right where you're sitting? This happened when I was in Indianapolis. I was ripping to a bunch of strangers and the lineup of people who went, oh my gosh, there's no way you knew. There's no way you knew that. There's no way you knew that. Because that's a gift, not a good teacher, but profit. But I can't foretell the future. That's never what I mean.
Mark Clark [00:16:00]:
It's part of what a prophet was when the spirit dropped. But there's a forth telling role where the prophet gets up and he says, hey, this is what's actually happening. This is what the scripture's teaching. This is what it has to do with your life. And then there's a. There can be a more supernatural aspect to it. I've had people in my life speak into my life in ways that there's no possible way they could have known things. And I've had those moments very sporadically in my own life where I'll speak into someone's life.
Mark Clark [00:16:28]:
There's no possible way I would have known it. And God gives me something very specific. I had a friend in 1999. It was a couple months before I started my first class in Bible college. And we were praying in his backyard. I remember it. And I mean, this is like, you know, green behind the ears, chain smoking mark, right? Not the. Not the specimen of maturity that you see before you today.
Mark Clark [00:16:54]:
I'm talking about like little kid Mark, like, I'm going to battle college tomorrow. Let's go, bro. Okay, that Mark. And he looked at me in the backyard and I'll never forget it. And I think I've only ever said this publicly once. And he said to me, God just gave me a vision for you and I'm jealous of it, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. He said, I pictured you standing preaching in front of thousands upon thousands of people. And I'm like, what do you mean, bro? What do you mean? Me, me, me.
Mark Clark [00:17:35]:
And that's happened to me multiple times in my life where I've got up and literally there's been thousands of people at one time, and I don't know what vision of that he saw, but someone was able to speak into my life in a way that was more supernatural. I had a guy tell me something in Toronto, something that was happening in Vancouver that was very specific. He never could have known. So that kind of stuff does happen and we just got to be careful of it because I did young adult ministry for a lot of years and kids would try to use this. Like, hey, Melissa, God told me we're supposed to get married. And I'm like, no, that's bad pizza. Melissa run. Right? That's.
Mark Clark [00:18:16]:
Joey's had that three times this month with all the youth group girls run fast. So that's different, right? That can get wonky. That can get wonky. And I'll talk about that in a few minutes. But. So there's a discernment that needs to take place. And why Jesus is saying, you gotta watch out for these false prophets is because one writer has said this, and I think this is very important to remember. Cause we all celebrate the amazing things that are happening here at Bayside.
Mark Clark [00:18:43]:
We're doing baptisms tomorrow. There's kids coming to Christ. There's kids at camps. Like, the church is growing up into the right. At all of our campuses, our campus pastors are killing it. Like, they're killing it. They love Jesus. They love their people.
Mark Clark [00:18:57]:
They're serving their people. It's incredible. I know every single one of them and their families. The stuff that's happening at Bayside is unbelievable. And we celebrate that. And we're jacked about it. But one writer has said this, and this is why we need to watch out. He says this.
Mark Clark [00:19:11]:
When the church is revived, the devil is, too. So at a time like this, that's when you got to be careful. Because you'll get. You'll come to Jesus and you'll get jacked, and you'll get in a small group and God will start blessing. You'll get baptized, and then your marriage will start to fall apart. Or you'll get tempted toward different things in your life that you weren't tempted toward. And Jesus is saying, we have to beware. Because the thing that may get you off track, this is very important.
Mark Clark [00:19:45]:
It's the thing we rarely ever talk about in the church. The thing that could get you off track is not just your sin. We talk about that every week. It could be false teaching. It's not your sin. It's somebody else's sin leading you down a road that you were never meant to go down. And so he says, they come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they're ferocious wolves. So the false prophet, in a sense, is a shepherd.
Mark Clark [00:20:23]:
He's a leader, or she a leader or an influencer. So this isn't so much about just the regular Joe. It's teachers and leaders in the church. And Paul says in Galatians one that if I come to you and I give you a gospel that's even a little bit different than the real gospel, let me be Eternally condemned, he says. I remember my teacher put it this way. His first year of Bible college, we went into Galatians class, Galatians, chapter one. He got up and I'll never forget these words. He said, listen, if you put 99% pure ingredients in a pie and 1% arsenic, that 1% will kill you.
Mark Clark [00:21:01]:
So it's very important that you think clearly. Charles Malik, years ago, he's this philosopher, he said these words, he said, the true task of the Christian world is not only to win souls. For if you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover you've not won the world. Indeed, it may turn out you've actually lost it. It's a battle of the mind. Now here's a bunch of places that the battle that false teachers are after try to get in on. You can write these down in your notes. There's lots of room there.
Mark Clark [00:21:38]:
So. So let me go through two or three or four different areas that false teachers are going to try to deceive you. Okay? The first is the nature of God. So they're going to try to say false teachers are going to say that there's no such thing as trinitarian theology. So true Biblical Christianity teaches that God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, eternally one, yet eternally distinct. Each of them has their own role. They are one person and yet they are three. So there's a unity and a diversity among the Trinity, which is beautiful because that means there would you realize the Christian version of God is the only version of God where there was love before any creation was actually created.
Mark Clark [00:22:23]:
Because the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit have had an eternal, what C.S. lewis calls dance of love from eternity past. But in the pure unification view of God, it's only when he creates something that love gets created. He needs somebody to love. But you get this version of God that the minute you start to stray from a Trinity, you're off on the wrong foot. You can almost boil heresy down to what's people's view of the Trinity? Or what are people's view of Jesus? Is Jesus God or not? So when those guys dressed in the nice suits come to your door and you hide from them because you don't want to have this conversation, right? What is the conversation about? It's the very nature of the Trinitarian God and about Jesus Christ in particular. Is he God or is he not God? You can solve a lot of world religious debates by just getting down to that very question. So it's a question of God secondly, it's a question of salvation.
Mark Clark [00:23:18]:
People are going to say, you can get to heaven through good works. You can get to heaven through doing the five pillars. You can get to heaven through reincarnation. You can get to heaven by the Eightfold path to peace. All these different versions of salvation. Thirdly, a discussion about heaven. Lots of people are gonna say, you know what? Everybody goes to heaven. It's called universalism.
Mark Clark [00:23:37]:
It's a heresy that's been around a long time. Everybody goes to heaven. Don't worry about it. Everybody goes, so have fun. Do whatever you want. Everyone's gonna be there. You're like, hitler's gonna be there. And they're like, hey, look, McDonald's, all right? They just don't know where the conversation's gonna go.
Mark Clark [00:23:54]:
Another version of it, fourth is marriage gets redefined. So Bible comes out and goes, male, female, they get married. They leave their mother and father, they get married. We start redefining that and realize that when the church talks about marriage as a union between a male and a female, when people start to stray from that, the issue is not that pastors are like, I don't have, like, a degree in sexology and the way biology works, but I have a Bible degree. And so it's a Bible issue at the end of the day, not a I'm gonna get into every psychological, Freudian argument about the nature of the way thing. It's a Bible thing that if the Bible has an authoritative opinion on a thing, then we're gonna follow that thing, even if we don't necessarily like that thing. Right. That's the issue.
Mark Clark [00:24:45]:
So that can get easily strayed. Fifthly, the Holy Spirit begins to be used to create chaos rather than peace and chill. So people go, oh, my God. There was literally one of the biggest churches in the area that I planted, Village, just outside our church. If you're new, you're like, he planted a village. So I planted a church years ago called Village Church, up just outside of Vancouver, Canada. And the biggest church in our area was about an hour from us. And it went through this, like, this mode for a bunch of years where the Holy Spirit was doing things.
Mark Clark [00:25:26]:
And this teacher was getting up and saying, well, this is what's happening, and this is what's happening. And literally, I'm not joking you, I could not make this up. Some of this stuff was. He would tell these stories about. He would be preaching, and the Holy Spirit would go, hey, kick that woman in the face. Yeah. And he would go, okay, Lord. And he'd walk Up.
Mark Clark [00:25:50]:
And he'd go, bam. And the church would go, yeah, praise God. And he ran a ministry for, like, two decades. Kick that woman in the face. Because how can you challenge it? Because everything's subjective. You can't come and challenge me because what do you know? How do you know what God says? He said one time he was sitting in a kitchen and he saw an old lady. 80 years old. I could not make these stories up.
Mark Clark [00:26:16]:
80 years old. She comes walking through the kitchen of the church, and he goes, kick the door of that kitchen right at her. So he gets up and he grabs it and he goes, boom. Kicks the door. Bam. Right into her. She gets up. She's like, glory to God.
Mark Clark [00:26:29]:
And the church is like, yes, Lord, What? This is what begins to happen. Because we get so subjective that we don't understand. So you. And here's the thing, guys. These. Listen, this is very important. These people aren't dumb. They're deceived.
Mark Clark [00:26:52]:
That's the difference. People aren't dumb. I mean, some people are. They're deceived because there's been a wolf in sheep's clothing that's walked in and given them the right manipulative tools to make them believe some stuff that they never thought they were going to believe and they didn't even know they were going to believe it. Another one would be that the Bible isn't true. Right? The Bible is just some ancient book. Don't pay attention to it anymore. It doesn't have authority in your life.
Mark Clark [00:27:32]:
Go on and come up with a whole bunch of ideas. So these are all. These are six or seven different areas where the false prophets will come. Now, here's another version of this. It's not just what they emphasize, it's what they deemphasize. Martyn Lloyd Jones, a preacher 60 years ago, said this. The most dangerous person of all is the one who doesn't emphasize the right things. So it's not just emphasizing the wrong things.
Mark Clark [00:27:58]:
Ezekiel 13:10 says, they lead my people astray, meaning false shepherds saying, peace when there is no peace. So the false teacher says, peace, Peace. Everything's fine. So this is how it might sound today. Peace. There's no such thing as hell, so don't worry about it. Peace. These false prophets say, peace, Peace.
Mark Clark [00:28:25]:
Everything's fine. Peace. Peace. God isn't mad at anybody. He's just a daft old uncle who wants to play checkers with you, and he can't wait for you to give him a little attention. He's love. He loves everything. All the Time.
Mark Clark [00:28:41]:
He never gets angry. He has no wrath. Peace. Peace. These are ideas that we believe there's no such thing as sin. There's just, you know, you're unique. You know, it's like what your kindergarten teacher told you growing up. There's nothing wrong with you.
Mark Clark [00:29:01]:
You're unique, like a snowflake. So one writer has said, false prophets talk much about the love of God, but nothing of his holiness. Much about people who are deprived, but nothing about those who are depraved. Much about God's universal fatherhood over every human being, but nothing about his unique fatherhood, only of those who are his children through faith in his son, Jesus. Much about what God will give to us, but nothing about obedience to Him. Much about health and happiness, but nothing about holiness and sacrifice. Their message is a message of gaps. And the greatest gap is that they leave out the truth that saves.
Mark Clark [00:29:49]:
Because if I don't tell you about sin, then you're never gonna need a savior. If you don't understand that you're sinful, then you're never gonna wanna fly to Jesus. Now, if that's offensive to us, we're like, okay, well, that's offensive. So I won't come back to a church that talks about sin and the cross. Well, it's not my job to make you come back here. Like, I don't. I know. This is my job.
Mark Clark [00:30:23]:
Like, yes, I get paid to come, but, guys, I get job offers all the time. I don't have to be here. And I don't even mean from other churches. There's people who work business. They're like, hey, you want to come work for me? I think you can sell. Sell these tires. You'd be really good at selling these tires. The amount we would pay you to sell these tires, I'm going to put it across the table, and you just wink.
Mark Clark [00:30:54]:
I don't. I don't. I could win $10 million tomorrow, and I'd probably go on vacation for a week and come back and still be doing this. Cause I don't do it for the money. False prophets, false teachers do it for the money, which is why they can't tell you hard truths. Because you gotta come back. If you don't come back, I don't have a job. And the Bible says, I'm gonna tell you the truth, and you might be offended if there's only one God and there's only one way.
Mark Clark [00:31:24]:
Like last week, remember, there's only one way. The nar. There's a narrow way to heaven, and it's Only through Jesus, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. That's it, that's it. That's it. Now, there's two ways that are gonna keep you from the narrow way. Next week is gonna say you can.
Mark Clark [00:31:45]:
This week's gonna say these teachers can. They can keep you from the narrow way if you start to believe them. I see a gap sometimes in church leadership or the modern church where we're so after practicality that we miss out on theological depth. Which is why I love that we got Thrive College, because it says the next generation of kids isn't just going to be practical, pragmatic people. It's going to be people who understand the Bible so they can carry the theology of the Gospel into the next generation. That's the point in orthodox old school Christian theology. That's why every time, like I have this group of young, up and coming leaders at Bayside, and I was like, hey, do you want to just read these books? And they're like, yeah. So like every three months I assign a book, they all read it and we all come together and we talk about it.
Mark Clark [00:32:42]:
But all these books are written by dead people because dead people have good things to say theologically. Modern people have pragmatic things to say theologically. Stuff that works. But people who are dead don't care about what works. They're like, I'm gonna tell you what's true. G.K. chesterton called tradition the democracy of the dead. It's where the dead get to.
Mark Clark [00:33:10]:
It's where the guys from 200 years ago and women from 50 get to go, hey, here's some ideas. And then we wrestle with those versus like, but how's this going to work? We'll get there. First we have to understand the ideas. And that's when you're going to get to a place where no one, no one can deceive you, right? It's like. It's like, remember Acts 17, verse 11 is probably. You guys know this. Now, the Bereans, right? Sometimes they'll drive by. In Ontario, I used to drive by the Berean Baptist Church.
Mark Clark [00:33:44]:
I'm like, we're Berean. What does that mean? Berean from the Bible. Now, the Bereans were of more noble character than others, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. They were more noble because they examined the teaching with the Bible and made sure the preacher was telling the truth. Do you do that with Kurt, because you definitely should. You should do it with me and Andrew and Ray and Kevin and all the. All the lead. All the.
Mark Clark [00:34:24]:
Every time you open up description, you see, at least it used to be the case in banks. The way that you figure out what a counterfeit bill is at a bank is you don't study counterfeit bills. You study a real bill. And then when you see a counterfeit, you know what it looks like. So theologically, your best bet against these false prophets is studying the Bible. Like for yourself. Not podcasts, not preaching, you reading the Bible so you never get deceived by false prophets who would love to deceive you. Because the Bible is the actual authority that we have in our life.
Mark Clark [00:35:10]:
And that's the ultimate question is, are you gonna let the Bible be the authority in your life? Because there's a lot of great ideas out there. Yeah, I trade this idea and that idea and whatever. Now here's the crazy. But they come to you in sheep's clothing, right? Like, they don't. It's not ob. So. So sometimes, like, if I got up here and just went, hey, guys, welcome to Bayside Church. We don't believe the Bible and Jesus ain't God.
Mark Clark [00:35:38]:
Let's continue. You'd all be like, what? Too obvious. Sheep's clothing. You know why people go into these fault. Like, so, you know, before I became a Christian, I almost became a Mormon. I was searching spiritually for God and I had no one to direct me. And I met the two nicest guys on the planet. That's why a lot of people follow, because nice people, it's not like they're not ghouls.
Mark Clark [00:36:24]:
Wanna believe I some ideas. You're never going to get anybody to believe your ideas if you're a ghoul. Sheep's clothing. You know, back then, a shepherd would wear sheep's clothing for warmth. So picture the shepherd standing upright, wearing sheep's clothing. It's not so much that he looks like a sheep, he does look like a sheep, but he looks like a shepherd that looks like a sheep. He's not down on our fours. It's a leadership thing.
Mark Clark [00:37:07]:
The shepherd who's standing is dressed like a sheep, and he's leading them astray. Now, he says, by their fruit, you will recognize them. Now this is interesting. Likewise, Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. Now, here's what's fascinating about this. You go, okay, well, now I'm losing the metaphor a bit, because I thought you couldn't really Tell it's a sheep. It's a wolf, but in sheep's clothing. And he's faking it so he can deceive you.
Mark Clark [00:37:45]:
But now you're supposed to be able to tell because, look, you should be able to tell the bad fruit. You can, but that's where we misunderstand what the Greek is trying to do. It doesn't mean bad as in you see a red apple and a black fruit and you're like, oh, I can see the difference. It's that it's poisonous, but it looks the same. That's what the word bad means. It's when you eat it, it kills you. But you couldn't tell when you were just looking at it. It's the exact same image.
Mark Clark [00:38:24]:
He's about to close the whole sermon off with next week. There's two houses, you know, you built your house upon the rock. I don't know the rest because I didn't grow up in Sunday school. But there's that rock and there's sand and there's two houses and one built on the rock and the other's built on the sand. And the houses, they don't. One doesn't look bad and the other looks good. They both look the same. You have to look underneath to see the true nature of the house.
Mark Clark [00:38:54]:
That's what he's saying here. You gotta bite the fruit. You gotta figure out what's underneath these deceivers to be able to figure out if you've actually been deceived. And then he ends this way. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus by their fruit, you will recognize them. Man, you know what I love? He gives this image of fire that the Gospel says is exactly what we all deserve.
Mark Clark [00:39:37]:
The judgment of God and left to ourselves. That's what we get. But Jesus Christ came on a tree so that we would never have to feel the fire. He died on a cross for our sin. And by going into the scriptures and focusing on him, we can be people who never get deceived by these people who next week we don't deceive ourselves. And when the storm comes, we stand. Because we're built on the rock of Jesus versus the rock of ourselves. So, Father, I do pray that in this room we are people who are listening, hearing good ideas versus bad and fighting, waking up every morning fighting like the Bereans.
Mark Clark [00:40:41]:
To not be deceived, to worship who you truly are and whenever we've strayed in that going after bad ideas because they might feel feel better than true ideas. I pray you would continue to lead us to be the kind of thinkers where we never get deceived by the world or false teachers, or even as next week we'll talk about ourselves. That nobody in this room will ever hear your words that you talk about in the text that closes off this whole sermon. I never knew you. I hope that that's not true about anybody in this room. And if it is, that right now they would give their lives to you. That they would say, lord Jesus, forgive me for my sin and let me take the salvation that you purchased on that tree that produces good fruit. In Jesus great name we pray.
Mark Clark [00:41:48]:
Amen.