Third-Last Sunday of the Church Year—Beware the False Christs and False Prophets
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.
Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There,’ do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand.” (Matthew 24:21–25)
These verses from the gospel that I just read to you are really a hinge point between two things Jesus is talking about in the gospel today. The destruction of the old Jewish kingdom, those who rejected Jesus as Messiah and still decided to trust in that sacrificial system that had passed away, and then the second part, what we are to look out for as the end of all things and Jesus returning glory as it comes, what we are to look out for. Today Jesus tells us of the destruction of the false Jewish religion, because many of the Jewish people rejected Jesus as their Messiah.
God sent the Roman armies in 70 AD to destroy the temple in which they trusted. This people had put their trust in their sacrifices, which had become an abomination in the sight of God, rather than trusting in Christ, His word, His suffering, and His victorious resurrection. Because of this idolatry, God, out of great love for His chosen people according to the flesh, according to His people of the flesh of Abraham, out of great love for them, to whom, according to scripture, pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, of whom are the fathers, and from whom according to the flesh Christ came, who is over all the eternally blessed God.
Amen. Out of great love for that stiff-necked people, God sent destruction upon them. He sent destruction upon them, their temple, their city, the city of the great king, and the old covenant sacrificial system of the temple in which they trusted in, above God, even God in the flesh in front of them, and Jesus Christ.
This ought to be taken very seriously, and we must continue to proclaim it, that that is what Jesus is talking about in those first verses of this gospel lesson. It's what He's talking about in Mark and Luke as well, when He talks about the destruction and the Roman army's coming. Unfortunately, there are many false prophets and false Christs today who have forgotten or denied this judgment.
Maybe they're ignorant, maybe it's on purpose, but they are false prophets and false Christs nonetheless. They have forgotten or denied that the Lord Jesus said to Daniel, after sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself, and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, until the end of the war desolations are determined.
Then He shall confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.
They have forgotten or denied that our Lord, speaking of His own body, said, destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days.
They have forgotten or denied—these false prophets and false Christs have—the vision given to St. John, where he says, I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people.
But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light, and the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.
They neglect to see that this vision makes clear to us who hear the Lord's word and believe it—makes clear to us what the prophet Ezekiel's vision of a new temple really meant. The prophet Ezekiel's vision of a new temple, the one that had living water flowing out of it into a desert with no vegetation, giving life to this wasteland, this barren desert—that temple is Jesus' body.
And that prophecy was fulfilled with Jesus on the cross, water and blood flowing out of His body to give life to the world when that soldier pierced His side.
We have many false Christs and false prophets who neglect what our Lord has said about the Jewish temple's destruction in 70 AD and who refuse to see the continuing judgment against this unbelieving people in the fact that a mosque stands in its place even to this day.
Instead of recognizing the truth of God's word and human history that has followed since the last recorded history of Scripture, we have false Christs and false prophets even in our own government who say that if we abandon the modern nation of Israel, God will abandon us.
False Christs and false prophets, leaders who represent our state, who tell us that we are biblically commanded to support the modern nation of Israel. Leaders who, outside of their actual elected office, have gone to the modern nation of Israel with American cattle, bringing red heifers to unbelieving Jews in a hope that sacrificing these might fulfill some sort of prophecy based on misinterpretations of Scripture to force God's hand for Him to come again in glory—that it's up to us to make Jesus come back, that if we do this thing here, then the temple will get rebuilt and Jesus will come back.
False Christs and false prophets all over a Jewish temple that Christ told us would be destroyed because of their unbelief, and it was destroyed by Roman armies 2,000 years ago as a judgment against these unbelieving people whom He dearly loves, whom He chose in Abraham.
Fueled by the false belief that rebuilding that temple would be an event that caused Jesus to return in glory, even Christians are becoming false Christs and false prophets in this—as if Jesus couldn't return suddenly at any moment, as a thief in the night as He tells us.
Jesus has warned us beforehand of the many false Christs and false prophets. These examples are particularly dangerous because they come from leaders that most Christians, like you and me, would align themselves with on issues such as abortion and other social and political issues—leaders who are much more tolerant towards conservative, historic Christianity, like the Christianity we hold, than many other leaders in our country.
So it makes it all the more dangerous, this false prophecy, these false Christs. But remember that our Lord warned beforehand that there will be great signs and wonders to lead astray, even if possible, the elect. That is how convincing, that is how powerful, these false Christs and false prophets will appear.
Strong arguments, bold assertions, great power and might by worldly standards—that is what Jesus tells us to expect. Do not be deceived. Do not be led astray.
Our Lord Jesus loves the people that He chose in their father Abraham according to the flesh. He loves them. He loves men like Bibi Netanyahu. He loves men such as these. He chose them according to the flesh in their father Abraham.
And to them belong all the prophets that we listen to, like Job, an Israelite according to the flesh. To that same flesh belong all the blessed apostles whose words we listen to every Sunday, who gave their lives up for the sake of the truth of Christ. And because of their boldness, we hear God's word today.
To them belongs the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was an Israelite according to the flesh. Do not forget that because these are certain truths.
But it is also a certain truth that any Israelite according to the flesh who rejects Jesus Christ as their Messiah is cut off from true Israel—cut off from true Israel.
And all Gentiles, you and me, who confess Jesus as Lord, who believe in the heart that God raised Him from the dead, are saved and grafted into true Israel, along with all those Israelites according to the flesh, like the prophets and apostles before us, who believed in Jesus Christ as their Messiah. We are true Israel. You must remember that certain truth as well.
Do not be deceived by the false Christ and false prophets who come to you with their own dreams and inventions, who, whether knowingly or ignorantly, lead astray so many Christians into thinking that flesh and blood are more important to God than saving faith, who lead us astray into thinking that flesh and blood genealogies are more important than faith in the heart, which clings to Christ as Savior. Contradicting Scripture and engendering a false conception of the kingdom of Christ, turning the hope of Christians upon earthly goals and leading them to look upon the Bible as some obscure confusing book, which, by the way, is what the Roman church wanted us to believe in the Reformation, that it's this confusing, hidden, mysterious thing rather than the Scriptures being clear, the clear fountain of Israel.
Your Lord and Savior warned you beforehand that they would come. Do not go after them. Do not listen to them. Do not even eat with such a one.
We must also look out for false Christ and false prophets who lead us astray from the only place we can hope to be saved and see our Lord face to face in the blessed resurrection. There are obvious unbelievers who blaspheme God's name and heap up all sorts of arguments and accusations against a God whose existence they claim to deny, even though they seem to hate Him so much. They demand proof, these unbelievers. They demand proof that meets their standards of proof. But our Lord tells them, and He tells us, if you do not hear the Scripture, neither will you believe when you see Me risen from the dead.
We must beware of the heterodox teachers, the false Christ and false prophets, who point people to their own decision to follow Jesus, their own works, their own emotional response, or some other part of our sinful flesh for certainty that God is gracious to us for Christ's sake. We must avoid that too, because that is a false Christ and a false prophet.
Avoid them and remember what your Lord says: Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. The same Lord who says, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
God deals with us not through our experience alone, not through our emotional response, not through our works and striving. He deals with us according to the means of grace—His word, His baptism, His supper, His keys, His keys for binding and loosing.
And finally, after we avoid the false Christ and false prophets of the unbelieving world, and the false Christ and false prophets of the heterodox churches among us, we must also beware those false Christs and prophets who claim to be orthodox.
Beware of teachers who act as though the Christian faith depends on having apologetic arguments that cannot be reputed, that make you feel convinced that these things are true. This is not a joke. Last week, Sunday morning, a classmate of mine in the English District stood up in front of his congregation at the behest of our district president to let them know that he had had a crisis of faith and couldn't be their pastor anymore, and went on to explain that it was because he just wasn't convinced anymore that Jesus was the Son of God, that the things in the Bible were really true, that he tried, that he went to the seminary and talked to professors and looked at arguments and he said, “Some of them I found more convincing than I thought I would have found them. But still, this is where I'm at.”
We ought to pray for him. We ought to. But that is dangerous. You trust in the grace of God, whether you feel it or not. His word is true, whether you feel it or not. You don't rest your faith in some apologetic argument, because I guarantee you, no matter how great a YouTube video it is, you go down in the comments and you'll find something that gives you another crisis of faith. You don't trust in that.
You avoid teachers who make you feel that way, that our trust is built up in irrefutable apologetic arguments according to human reason. That's sinking sand. You cling to the rock of truth that tells you, faith comes from hearing My word, and if you abide in My word, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. That's what Jesus tells you. Doesn't mean you don't make apologetic arguments, but you don't put your faith in that. You put your faith in Jesus' word and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.
Avoid those teachers among us, the so-called Orthodox, the so-called Lutherans, who act as though your standing before God depends on your works in any way, whether it be preceding, during conversion, or following conversion. And flee from those false Christs and false prophets among the Orthodox, so-called Lutherans, who neglect a Christian life, who throw the charge of pietism toward any Christian that warns of the dangers of living in sin that grace may abound. That's not pietism. That's Romans 6. The Christian life is a life we live.
Listen to Luther warn us of that last kind of false prophet and false Christ. In his day, against what were called the antinomians, the anti-law crowd, he said this:
“This is what my antinomians too are doing today, who are preaching beautifully and as I cannot but think with real sincerity about Christ's grace, about the forgiveness of sin, and whatever else can be said about the doctrine of redemption.
But they flee as if it were the very devil, the consequence that they should tell the people about the third article of sanctification, that is, of the new life in Christ. They think one should not frighten or trouble the people, but rather always preach comfortingly about grace and the forgiveness of sins in Christ, and under no circumstances use these or similar words.
Listen, you want to be a Christian and at the same time remain an adulterer, a whoremonger, a drunken swine, arrogant, covetous, a usurer, envious, vindictive, malicious, and I'll add running people through the mud even for things they really did wrong, but they're not sitting here to be amended, not saying it out of love. You think you can believe and do that?
Instead they say, these antinomians say, listen, though you are an adulterer, though you are an adulterer, a whoremonger, a miser, or other kind of sinner, if you but believe you are saved and you need not fear the law, Christ has fulfilled it all.”
Luther goes on:
“Tell me, my dear man, is that not granting the premise and denying the conclusion? It is indeed taking away Christ and bringing Him to naught at the same time He is most beautifully proclaimed, and it is saying yes and no to the same thing, for there is no such Christ that died for sinners who do not, after the forgiveness of sins, desist from sins and lead a new life. Thus they preach Christ nicely with Nestorian and Eutychian logic, keeping Him separated or gluing them together like two planks, that Christ is, and yet not, Christ.
They may be fine Easter preachers, but they are very poor Pentecost preachers, for they do not preach sanctification and new life in the Holy Spirit, but solely about the redemption of Christ, although Christ, whom they extol so highly, and rightly so, is Christ. That is, He has purchased redemption from sin and death so that the Holy Spirit might transform us out of the old Adam into new men. We die unto sin and live unto righteousness, beginning and growing here on earth and perfecting it beyond, as Saint Paul teaches.
Christ did not only earn gratia, grace, for us, but also donum, gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that we might have not only forgiveness of, but also cessation of sin.
Now he who does not abstain from sin but persists in his evil life must have a different Christ, that of the antinomians. The real Christ is not there, even if all the angels would cry, ‘Christi, Christi.’ He must be damned with this, his new Christ.”
That's Luther.
Do not listen to the false prophets and false Christs of the world, the heterodox churches, or among us, even those who claim the name Lutheran. Test everything according to the word of God who warned you, the Lord who warned you beforehand about the lengths to which the devil and his servants would go to lead you astray.
Remain where He is found and is still speaking to you, and is still warning you, and is still strengthening you, where He still keeps you firm in His word and faith until you die, because that is His good and gracious will, where He still keeps you that way. And when you feel the cross, when you feel affliction, when you feel doubts, like my classmate, if you feel doubts like that and other spiritual attacks, remember that faith is conceived and strengthened through absolution, through the hearing of the gospel, through the use of the sacraments, so that it may not give in to the terrors of sin and death and doubt while it struggles.
There and only there.
Let us pray. Lord Jesus Christ, You preach to Your beloved disciples of the abomination of desolation which loomed before the destruction of the Jewish people. We are reminded thereby of the dreadful and burdensome times in which we, who are poor and miserable, are now enmeshed. Heartily we beseech You, as You have at all times taken up Your elect under Your fatherly care, seized and removed many of them from misfortune, wonderfully accompanied them, and heard their sighs and prayers, so also have mercy upon us and all Your believers today, who find comfort in the shedding of Your rose-colored blood. Snatch them up and bring them to rest from the approaching and now impending temporal and eternal misfortune. Strengthen their faith that in distress they may not despair in You and Your help, but rather that they may always call upon, honor, extol, and praise You, for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
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