The False Prophet's Motive

The false prophet’s message as found in Matthew 7:13-14 is one of easy salvation and easy discipleship. He uses a wide gate and a broad way that leads to destruction. It is from the false prophet’s message that you can begin to understand the false prophet’s motive. The false prophet uses the wide gate and the broad way because his motive is quantity and not quality. The false prophet wrongly assumes that God is more interested in quantity than He is in quality and therefore he brings many people through the wide gate false gospel.

Jesus is saying in Matthew 7:15-20 that the false prophet’s motive is quantity. Jesus said, “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.”

Notice that our Lord Jesus Christ said that the false prophet has no quality of fruit – He did not say that the false prophet didn’t have quantity. Jesus made a “qualitative” statement when He called the fruit either “good” or “bad”. The Lord is interested in quality and not quantity but the false prophet is interested in quantity and not quality.

Jesus said the way to know a false prophet is by his fruit – if you want to know whether or not a man is a false prophet who is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, look at his fruit; look at his church members.

The false prophet proclaims a wide gate false gospel and a broad way false discipleship that perpetuates false Christianity, producing church members who are powerless professors of the faith, holding to a form of godliness (Christianity), although they have denied its power (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

The false prophet may have quantity but he will not have quality. Jesus didn’t say that he wouldn’t have fruit, but that he would have “bad” fruit. The way to find out what kind of fruit a man is producing is to ask, “Are his church members more interested in pleasure than they are in purity?” – “They will be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Are His church members more interested in the lottery than they are the Lord? – “They will be lovers of money” Are his church members more interested in their comfort than they are their character? – “They will be lovers of self.” Do his church members know that God’s top priority for the Christian’s life is his or her purity? “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Do his church members know that God’s top priority for His church is its purity? “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25-27). Do his church members know that Christ died for purity (quality)? – “Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:13-14).

The false prophet’s motive is quantity and not quality – but God desires quality and it can only be obtained through the narrow gate and narrow way which produces the quality God wants.