Heaven on Earth - a spiritual tester kit
In 1942, a 20 year old man called Kazimierz Piechowski had been a prisoner in the Auschwitz Concentration camp for two years. One day he and 3 friends broke into a storage facility and stole some SS uniforms and equipment. Kazimierz wore an officer’s uniform. They hijacked the camp commandant’s car and drove across the camp to the exit barrier. It was several kilometres away but as they got closer they realised the barrier was staying down despite the approach of the commandant’s car. They had agreed that if they got caught they would kill themselves immediately rather than risk capture and torture. When they got to the barrier, Kazimierz got out and swore at the guards who obediently opened the barrier and they escaped.
When describing his state of mind as he drove toward the barrier, Kazimierz said, “I realised that I would have to change myself from being a concentration camp prisoner to being an SS officer and it is very difficult for me because I am still a prisoner inside my mind. I have to convince myself I am an SS officer.”
They got away with it although if his identity had been tested he would not have got very much further of course.
How do we know what someone is really like?
In today’s passage from the sermon on the mount, Jesus is answering the question,
“How can I know this is good and from God?”
He is providing a spiritual tester kit to help us know whether what looks good is good.
Although it sounds harsh when you read it, it is also a liberating passage. Although it sounds like a demand for high performance it is actually an invitation to repentance and new life.
Matthew 7
15 Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
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16 By their fruit you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?
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17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
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18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
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19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
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20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them.
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21 Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
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22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
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23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
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Jesus is sitting on a rock on a Palestinian hillside enticing his followers with vivid stories and pictures to help them understand the kingdom of heaven. He started by saying, “It’s here”. Then he said, “Repent, change direction, follow me and walk into the kingdom of heaven.”
He looks deep into your soul, knows what you are really like and says, “Come and walk in my footsteps”. He calls you into radical kingdom living where you are blessed because you are his.
And in this kingdom living there is power – power to prophesy, to cast out demons and to do miracles. Jesus demonstrated power and explained that this was the ordinary lot of his follower – to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit.
But this brings with it a new danger, something to watch out for: we must be careful not to confuse performance with salvation, power with purity, spirituality with sanctification, sounding good with being good. Sometimes when there is a demonstration of the power of God, it is followed by the counterfeit.
Verse 15
Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
It would not have been uncommon for shepherds to have used sheepskins for cover and for hiding but Jesus uses an exaggerated example to make the point - wolves don’t tend to wear clothes.
But it is a stunningly effective picture. We know exactly what he means.
In saying “false prophets”, Jesus is alluding to the false prophets of ancient times. We read about them in the Old Testament and they were identifiable as the prophets who preached an easy message of salvation. They were often accused of saying nice, friendly, affirming things to the leaders of their day as those leaders went about abusing the poor and ignoring social justice.
Today it might sound like, “Hey, everything is fine, don’t worry about all that – this is the 21st century, you can’t expect the message to pre-scientific savages from 2000 years ago to apply to us today. All this stuff about humility and meekness and purity and hell and heaven was fine then but we are a more tolerant and rational society now. God is a God of love and provided you do it in love, everything is good”.
Verse 21 & 22
Jesus switches to a different scenario, one that implies a future time of judgement.
Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
These people are forced to address him as Lord, as King; finally recognising him for who he really is. And although they claim to have prophesied and cast out demons and worked miracles, in other words exercising power, Jesus rebuffs them.
He is talking about the same people who wear sheep’s clothing but are wolves – the false prophets in verse 15.
So people who prophesy, cast out demons, work miracles, who worship, saying “Lord, Lord” – they don’t get to enter the kingdom of heaven. In fact they are described as wolves and in verses 16-19 as bad trees, thorn bushes, thistles.
And it gets worse.
Verse 23
Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
Finally Jesus rebuffs them saying, “ I never knew you.” In fact he describes them as evildoers – they are behaving in the opposite way to what he has been teaching throughout the sermon on the mount. Instead of behaving well they have been behaving badly.
This is all a bit worrying. If we can’t be impressed by someone who seems to prophesy and casts out demons and do miracles and who worships, singing, “Lord, Lord”, who can we be impressed by?
Verses 17, 18, 19
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.
Jesus uses a Semitic speech device to emphasise his point – saying the positive and then the negative: good trees bear good fruit but bad trees bear bad fruit etc.
That’s a good image too isn’t it? I mean you wouldn’t go up to an apple tree and say, “grow me a banana”. And if you carefully planted radish seeds, you wouldn’t go out into your garden one summer morning and expect to see aubergines squeezing out.
Jesus provides us with a spiritual tester kit.
“How can I know this is good and from God?”
The test we apply is to look for good fruit.
But if miracles and prophecy aren’t good fruit in themselves, what is?
The clue is in verse 21
Not everyone will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Fruit seems to be – a lifestyle that obeys the Father’s will, someone who walks in Jesus’ feet. The opposite of an “evildoer”. It’s behaviour. It’s not words but acts. It’s not spiritual power but a just and merciful life.
In John’s gospel (14:21) Jesus says,
“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.”
I don’t for one moment think that this means we shouldn’t seek to prophesy, to cast out demons, to pray for miracles or to worship. Of course we should. But these are not the measure of our salvation.
Jesus is coming to the end of the sermon on the mount where he has carefully described life in the kingdom of heaven. It started with “blessed are the poor in spirit, the merciful and pure in heart”, went on to not calling someone an idiot, not looking at a woman lustfully, not taking revenge, loving your enemies, praying, fasting, giving, trusting God and he has just finished talking about choosing the narrow gate. It all boils down to a description of the way Jesus lived his own life.
It fascinates me that the criteria for the most important destination call ever, the kingdom of heaven, is not the spectacular and the spiritual but the challenge to live well. It is the plain, ordinary call to a Christlike lifestyle. That’s it. It’s not easy but it is simple.
In Galatians, Paul says that if we are living by the Spirit then we will see the
fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
The fruit of the Spirit trumps the gifts of the Spirit.
You mean I have got live like Jesus?
- OK, I can do the kindness, gentleness piece but self-control?
- Well I am a strong, disciplined person; I can manage the self-control and the faithfulness. But joy and peace?
Well, in fact, none of us can do any of it. Fruit grows naturally. This type of character and this type of behaviour grows naturally. Good fruit from a good tree. In the kingdom of heaven, this is how one lives.
“But David, I am confused, are you saying I need to live like Jesus, behave really well in order to get into heaven? I thought you told me that there is nothing I can do to get right with God; I just need to repent and receive forgiveness. Which is it?”
Good question. It’s both. I see it as a process:
We are lost. A long way from God although he searches after us. There is nothing we can do to pay the bill. We can never be good enough to survive in his presence.
In his great mercy he has ordained that the punishment and death afflicted on Jesus has paid the price for our sin.
All that is required from us is to repent – to turn from the selfish direction in which we were heading and to walk instead toward him. As soon as we do that we find we are walking in the kingdom of heaven, we are changed, re-born, new life.
We now live differently. Our lives have been rescued; the Holy Spirit of God now lives within us and there is power to change.
Our character begins to heal and grow.
As our character changes, our behaviour changes. And, miraculously we begin to see the fruit that Jesus is talking about.
Heaven on earth.
Often we fall, the fruit isn’t there. When our behaviour errs again, we have to go back to the cross, back to Jesus’ sacrifice, back on our knees and repent again. And wonderfully, mercifully, we can receive mercy and move on in our walk with him.
We don’t have to become a Christian again, that is a done deal, but we are in the process of being formed and growing and becoming more like Jesus.
Let me put this another way:
- Good behaviour flows from good character (Matthew 7:16,20)
- Good character flows from being born again of the Holy Spirit (John 3:5)
- Being born again flows from repentance (Acts 2:38)
What’s the question?
“How can I know this is good and from God?”
For us, the test doesn’t always arise outside the church – those challenges don’t need to be dressed up. This passage does two things:
It provides a tester kit:
Where people begin to have influence and leadership and who in many ways fit the part but where you have a doubt. Dressed up as sheep, they fit with appearances, but inside they are different. Something just doesn’t resonate.
They may be highly gifted, very effective in ministry but their character hasn’t yet developed or grown healthy enough. So you apply the test, do they do the will of the Father? Is their behaviour coming into line with the type of living Jesus has been describing in the Sermon on the Mount?
It liberates us:
Jesus is reminding us that our salvation comes about not through great works and miracles, not through enthusiastic worship and frequent words of knowledge, but by repentance which, as we follow Jesus, leads to growth in a Christlike character, the fruit of his Spirit emerging in our lives.
So we have a tester kit but we are also liberated!
We don’t have to fake it, to perform. Kazimierz Piechowski took a huge risk to fake who he was. The charade would only hold for seconds. We don’t have to live like that.
You don’t just have to try harder. You don’t have to just hope you get a prophetic word or are able to pray powerfully or build up the courage to cast out a demon.
No, you can relax. It’s not a performance test. There is nothing you can do to fabricate the Kingdom of heaven. It is the same for all of us, the message is clear, “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is nearby”. As we repent and invite Jesus into our lives, it’s his Holy Spirit that fills us and changes us. We find ourselves beginning to experience the Kingdom of Heaven in us and around us. We find we are choosing to obey the will of the Father and that we can live differently.
Do you want to see heaven on earth – today? To see justice for those who can’t defend themselves, mercy for those whose lives are collapsing around them? Do you want to see our country change, your community blessed, your friends find freedom and purpose and relationship with Jesus?
Well it starts with me and with you. One soul at a time getting serious with God before the cross and choosing to repent. Choosing to follow Jesus and to obey the will of the Father. And one at a time, little by little we will be changed. We will increasingly obey the will of the Father and see the fruit of the Spirit.
When we give our lives to Jesus, He changes us from the inside out.
I invite you – perhaps for the first time, perhaps for the nth time, to choose to follow Jesus. As he says in the next verse, “hear these words of mine and put them into practice ... build your house upon a rock.”
And your changed lives will bear fruit. And that fruit means change for the community in which we live. Little by little we will see justice and mercy and the kingdom of heaven come in our lives and in Leeds and beyond.
We will see Heaven on earth.
David Flowers, 10/04/2011