"Watch out for false prophets. 

They come to you dressed like sheep, but inside they are vicious wolves. 

You will know them by their fruit."

Matthew 7:15-16 CEB

In a world where we want to see the best in people, to see God's image alive in others, Jesus gives us a warning:

To watch out for false prophets. 

The Greek word used here is "pseudoprophétés", someone who claims to represent God, who claims to tell the truth, but their heart is somewhere else, self oriented, feeding the "wolf" within. 

Jesus warning is that it's really difficult to identify this person because they look OK, sound OK. We probably can't tell. 

Until we look at the fruit. 

If the fruit is hurt people, used people, discarded people, injustice, hoarding, impatience, anger, chains, burdens, fear, distrust, where the person benefitting is the "prophet" then maybe there's a problem.

Nice sounding words, saying the "right" things, looking "good", looking like they fit in, saying what we want to hear, always having a good reason, these are the tools of the wolf to make them seem like sheep. 

Check the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), or James description of true religion (James 1:27), or Jesus description of his mission (Luke 4:18-21) or Isaiah's word from God (Is 58:6-10) and we see some different fruit. 

Look for the fruit from Paul's chat in 1 Cor 13:4-7 - what fruit would we expect? 

Jesus says be aware, cos the wolf is hard to spot. Even the self oriented wolf within me.

#wordsofJesus

#redletterBible

#beware