Red Letter Truth
By their fruit you will recognize them. 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. – Matthew 7:16-20
By Jessica Greer
An array of gospel pop cultures plagues the Evangelical world. Social media is saturating our society with false prophets and charlatans at an unprecedented rate.
The age of deception and gullibility gives credence to all teachings that stoke the subjective experience. They are “always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). Between itching ears and attention-seeking influencers, the Evangelical subculture wants to worship a God they don’t actually know, thereby opening itself up to a Golden Calf Christianity. “Come, make us gods who will go before us” (Exodus 32:1).
Moses spends forty days receiving the most intricate instructions from God Himself, not living on bread or water but literally on what proceeds out of the mouth of God. Meanwhile, Aaron is co-opted into producing a physical god of sorts… and yet, the result of this worship spirals into complete indulgence.
The original sin rears its ugly head: we are gods. “There’s nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
Our culture of deception has enticed Western Christianity with a syncretic song and dance, blending constructs of the material world with Christian tenets. Ministries and sermons regurgitate trendy slogans from postmodern feminism and TikTok pseudo-psychology like “Radical Self-Love” “Self-Forgiveness” “Pursuing the Authentic Self” and “Self-Care” (Do you notice a theme, here?)
More recently, progressive Christians have taken on the sanctimonious role of “The Red Letter Christian” whose politically left activism is an adulteration of Jesus’ recorded words.
The Red Letter Christians concern themselves with “loving thy neighbor” by fighting for environmental justice, economic justice, racial justice, reproductive justice, etc. etc.
Moralists like Chelsea Clinton scold Catholic leaders by tweeting, It’s so wrong of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone to deny President Biden and Speaker Pelosi Holy Communion because they support a woman’s God-given right to choose. If Jesus were alive today he’d be working at Planned Parenthood. Read your Bible, Father.
Jesus said, “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” (Matthew 7:15-16). What commonality do the false prophet and the religious hypocrite share? They are both self-interested people pleasers.
The Pharisees sought to destroy Jesus early in His ministry, but their only deterrence was “they feared the people.” Securing their religious positions of power was at the center of their calculated schemes.
Old Testament false prophets professed visions favorable to the king, preaching peace to the people: “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions” (Isaiah 30:10).
”And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.’”
A big Ughhhhh! from King Ahab. The false prophet preaches victory, blessing, peace!... outside of God’s Word; promising access to God aside from truth.
The religious hypocrite is willing to mislead believers by mocking and questioning the authority of biblical truth.
Postmodernism promotes subjective interpretation of text. The Author is no longer the authority. He is irrelevant, secondary to the reader’s personal experience. We are no longer “looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2); now His Word is called into question and is being chopped up and modernized for a better Golden Calf experience.
The myth of the false prophet and religious hypocrite is that he is a malicious genius intentionally fooling and misleading people. The irony is that the false teacher is himself the most fooled.
“Now, son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people who prophesy out of their own imagination” (Ezekiel 13:17). That Christian mommy influencer that peddles feminist rhetoric doesn’t actually consider herself a feminist.
Preachers ministering peace with a trendy self-forgiveness twist are actually well-meaning in Christianizing cultural terminology. They prophesy out of their own imagination.
In Ezekiel 13:3 God says, “Say to those who prophesy out of their own imagination: ‘Hear the Word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!”
I often wonder about the crowds of people who followed Christ from city to city, enraptured by His miracle power. And yet, the invigorated masses being fed, healed, and enlightened turned into a bloodthirsty mob chanting death to that same Man.
The Bible tells us that events shrouded in wicked deception escalate quickly. Moses is up on Mt. Sinai receiving instructions on how to serve God, and the children of Israel are delusionally descending into paganism and debauchery.
Discerning the holy from the material, being able to distinguish the real from the fabricated, is an eternally vital Christian practice.
One of my personal favorite stories in the Bible is that of the Shunammite woman who showed hospitality toward the prophet Elisha. This encounter sets her on a path under God’s provision for the rest of her life. While her response to Elisha has been highlighted as a humble woman showing kindness. I believe the Shunammite woman had a spirit of discernment that opened her up to respond out of faith.
In 2 Kings 4:8 she tells her husband, “Behold now, I know that this is a holy man of God who is continually passing our way. Let us make a small room on the roof with walls and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there.”
Her ability to recognize a holy man of God completely shifted the trajectory of her life. It’s a poetic story of faith.
Take the people of Berea who acknowledged the Apostle Paul in a similar way. Acts 17:11 says, “The people of Berea were more open-minded than the people of Thessalonica. They were very willing to receive God's message, and every day they carefully examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was true.”
A discerning spirit will not only protect a believer from a false prophet, but it will help us determine what is real so that we may worship in spirit and in truth.
The Red Letter Christians, Chelsea Clinton, and others that soothe the itching ear all claim to represent Jesus, but they have failed to follow His words that give Him authority as the Author. Instead they are interpreting those red letters with their subjective imagination.
Jesus warns us of the false prophets, of the potential failure to discern the times, and of the delusion that we are His followers when in fact we do not know Him.
In Luke 13:24-25 Jesus says, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’”
We know the door is narrow and many will try to enter from a different way, false prophet style. Acts 2:17 says, “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.” The Last Days paradox is that while God pours out His Spirit, revealing scriptural truths with spiritual reality, false teachers will become vessels for demonic cultural deception. We must pray for discernment.
Jesus gives us this warning for the end times in bold red letters: “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3)