People cannot identify false prophets by the way they appear because they come to us disguised to look as one would expect true prophets, or true Christians, to look. You can only judge false prophets by their false prophecies and false teachings because when they appear at your door, online, or on television, they look like Christians.

One of the most used and abused verses of scripture among cults and pseudo-Christian groups, in our opinion, is Matthew 7:16, where Jesus said to His disciples, “You will know them by their fruit.” Every cultic group, by ignoring the context, abuses this verse to prove to outsiders that their group are the true Christians. The common attitude of the cults is, “Look at our GOOD works and judge for yourselves whether or not we are the TRUE CHRISTIANS.” The Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) boast, “We don’t participate in war, and we are the only ones going door to door to spread the gospel,” etc. The Mormons brag, “Our founder, Joseph Smith, received the truth from an angel. We are the only group that has a living prophet and apostles, and we also have the strongest and closest-knit families, etc.” Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate fame might say, “Oh, you think that’s Christian? We have deserted our families to follow the new ‘ Christ’ – Applewhite himself – and we are the only ones who have truly followed Jesus’ advice about cutting off offending body parts. Isn’t it obvious from our ‘fruit’ that WE are ‘the truth’?”

For one thing, quite a few groups go “from door to door” proclaiming falsehood, claim to have received their truth from “angels,” and say they are the only true truth, etc. We don’t really know of another group besides Heaven’s Gate that has literally cut off “offending” body parts, and frankly, we really don’t want to know. The point is, any group can say they are the only true Christians based upon their squeaky-clean appearance or the “good works” their group supposedly exhibits, and most Bible-based cults do make that claim.

But Jesus Christ said that He, not any organization or religion or church, is “the truth” (John 14:6). And these cult groups really should give Matthew 7:15-20 another look because it does not say what they try to make it say. Jesus in the passage was not talking about identifying Christians at all! He was warning his listeners to beware of false prophets (verse 15) and instructing them to judge the false prophets by their fruits!

And what, my dears, are the “fruits” of false prophets that we are to judge? False prophecies! Apple trees bring forth apples, and pear trees bring forth pears, and “false prophet trees” bring forth false prophecies! You can bank on it. These false prophecies can be in the form of false predictions of future events (Deuteronomy 13:1-3), or they can be in the form of false teachings that contradict scripture (Deuteronomy 18:20-22). Cults often meet both criteria. Did Armageddon come in 1914, 1925, or 1975 as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (JWs) predicted? Has Jesus – allegedly Michael the archangel – already returned “invisibly,” as they also claim? Can human beings become gods, as the Mormons teach? Did Joseph Smith receive hidden golden plates from the angel Moroni, as Joseph – a tall tale teller if there ever was one – himself claimed?

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