Welcome to Timeless Truth with Pastor Jim Thomas. This season, Pastor Jim is leading us in a study of The Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew, chapters 5-7.
“The New Testament authors are concerned not so much about false brethren as about false teachers, who act like wolves and scatter or destroy Christ’s flock.”
John Stott, Christ the Cornerstone (collected essays, 2019)
How can we tell whether someone is a false prophet/teacher?
Jesus uses a metaphor to teach us how to discern false prophets from prophets who speak for God, and represent the true Gospel of grace. Looking at the fruit will tell you whether the tree is good or bad, ie true or false.
- Message
- Method
- Motives
- Metaphor
In John’s gospel, Jesus used the metaphor of a vine and its branches to describe the relationship we have with Him…
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5
“The branch of the vine does not worry, and toil, and rush here to seek for sunshine, and there to find rain. No; it rests in union and communion with the vine; and at the right time, and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it. Let us so abide in the Lord Jesus.”
James Hudson Taylor
“The Christian should resemble a fruit-tree, not a Christmas tree! For the gaudy decorations of a Christmas tree are only *tied* on, whereas fruit *grows* on a fruit-tree. In other words, Christian holiness is not an artificial human accretion, but a natural process of fruit-bearing by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
John Stott, Christ the Controversialist
