This is how the disguise will to be seen through: the prophet’s actions are more telling than his words. The discerning believer must take advantage of this fact to uncover the true character of the man, for it is much harder for the false prophet to fake his actions than to fake his words.
By their fruits you will know them. This form of knowing involving examination. We watch all the time but you must scrutinise also; you must look below the surface. If this person as a wolf it won’t be on the outside you must examine the fruit of his work, the character of his church. Also you must examine his character, his tastes, his desires. Is he in it for selfish and worldly reasons? You consider his associates and friends. Are his friends the worst haters of truth in his denomination. If he is a wolf he will prefer wolves.
Today the idea is, abolish all moral standards with exception of a few – taking life, stealing property. Our society hates God’s standards; it calls them harmful. Constantly it wants to appeal to our lower instincts. ‘Let’s promote homosexuality’, they say. ‘Let’s promote sexual liberty, and pride and the feel-good factor. Give us a new value system. Don’t mind profanity: it is strangely liberating to allow it.’ It is intensely hostile to God. It uses fancy names to describe itself – ‘I am a social liberal.’ Pleasure is the main thing – that is drilled into you. Do we not know the fruit of it? It results in a world of cheating, swindling, abortion, theft, drunkenness, selfishness, coarseness? There has always been coarseness – remember chain gangs of Elephant and Castle. Yes but in spite of this, things have got far worse. Life is going to become intolerable. In some respects we still have hold of a bygone age in our institutions, but that is rapidly changing. The Lord’s description of those who promote these views is that they are thorns and thistles, bringing barbs and injury. They think that abortion is the last stop against results of sinful behaviour, but by this means people turned upside down in their emotions. It is a proud, cruel, selfish, totalitarian, worldview.
If you see genuine good fruit, then you know that this is a good tree, for a bad tree could not have produced good fruit. If you see evil fruit, then you know that it is an evil tree. But what about a tree that bears a mixture of good and evil fruit? Is the situation so black and white that all fit perfectly into one or the other category without any middle ground? Why then is it not easy to distinguish the sheep from the wolves? For several reasons. First, because the unbeliever has a capacity to imitate good words and outwardly good works, and we cannot see what is really going on in each other’s hearts. A good work may be defective because of the motive behind it, but that is harder to discern. A genuine good work comes from a good heart and is free of boasting or self-righteousness. It is done in order to please God, and that is only possible where the Lord has granted forgiveness of sin. Secondly, the situation is complicated by the fact that the believer has not one nature but two. He still has the old fallen nature which is quite capable of reasserting itself. It is not easy to tell the difference between the two, indeed Paul had to say of his own good works, ‘I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me’ (Romans 7:21). Even the eleven were deceived about Judas for a time. It was not until some went out from among the believers that it became apparent that they were not of them (1 John 2:19). As Paul says, ‘Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after. Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid’ (1 Timothy 5:24 - 6:1). However, although there may be some difficult cases, this rule is a safe guide, and in many cases can be clearly applied.
What are we testing here, the man or his teaching? Does this passage consider only the teaching of a prophet, and not also his character as a man? Is the fruit of a false prophet limited to his teaching and not also to the rest of his life? Martin Lloyd Jones describes two distinct interpretations of the passage. One interpretation limits fruit only to the prophet’s teaching and says we are not being asked to consider his life. Is his teaching consistent with itself? The other implies that the teaching of the prophet may be right, but his life may be completely at odds with his doctrine. Both positions miss the mark, he says, because Christ’s teaching is that the prophet is to be considered as a whole. One part of the man reveals the nature of the other: a defective life always goes hand in hand with defective teaching. Man cannot compartmentalise his being. If he could successfully disconnect his teaching from his life, then it would be pointless to use his conduct as a gage of his veracity. God does not deal with only part of a man and leave the other part untouched. He does not give a man a silver tongue and leave his lifestyle unchanged. It would be pointless giving this warning if a prophet could live as a hypocrite and yet succeed in preaching the true gospel. Based on his lifestyle he is to be rejected as a false prophet; it can be assumed that he brings another gospel.