Eighth Sunday after Trinity -- July 26, 2026

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father,and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.        

 If you go to the doctor for an ailment, you aremaking many assumptions regarding the doctor’s qualifications. You assume thathe or she has been to school, that they’ve spent many years watching otherdoctors and being under supervision in residency. Many of you have perhaps evenundergone surgery, whether major surgery or out-patient. There’s a certainlevel of trust that we must have with our doctors, because in many instances,we are putting our life into their hands. After all, they often have to knockyou out so you don’t know what’s going on. They often treat vital organs, andone mishap or slip of the knife could be the difference between life and death.

 Evenif they prescribe medication, there is still a level of trust that they knowwhat they’re doing. If they prescribe the wrong medication or the wrongcocktail of medications, they could do serious harm to you. And, if someone baddoes happen, what recourse do you have? We’ve all heard of medical malpractice.If you are injured in surgery or given bad medication, hopefully you live andcan seek compensation through a lawsuit. And even if you died during such anoperation, there are routes that your family can take to seek justice.

 Butwhat is scarier than all of this are the stories about those who pretend to bedoctors but don’t have the proper training or experience. They are rare ofcourse, but you hear about them from time to time. How do you prevent this fromhappening to you? Well, you could ask to see a doctor’s medical license or hisvarious certificates of profession. You could ask about what he plans to do foryou and why that is the best option. And those are both certainly good things.

 Themedical field isn’t the only area of life in which we need to trust people tocare for us. There are many professions that ensure the general public isn’tharmed. There is the FDA that watches over the food industries in our nation.The list could go on and on. We want to make sure that our lives will not beharmed. But when it comes to your spiritual life, how do you know whether youare being harmed? That is, how do you know that your pastor can be trusted?

After all, the effects are important. What if apastor is misleading you entirely? What if he is teaching you heresy that leadsto damnation? What if he is teaching false doctrine that are injurious to yoursoul? After all, doesn’t Jesus say in our text for today, “Not everyone who saysto me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven”? (21). And, “Thenwill I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’”?(23).

 The history of the church is full of wolvesthat have gotten into the flock of the church. Arius taught that Jesus was notof one substance with the Father but was created by Him. There are falseteachers even today who turn the focus away from Jesus onto how you live yourbest life now.

 You could, I suppose, look at his certificatesand diplomas. This isn’t the worst thing in the world. Graduating from collegeand seminary do certainly provide knowledge and study in the important areas.They tend to weed out those who don’t care about studying God’s word orengaging in basic academic study. But this isn’t enough. Yes, the mostegregious examples like Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer never went to seminary. Butthere are plenty of false teachers who have.

 Perhaps one of the most concerning changes thathappened in America is the gradual takeover of American seminaries in the early20^th century by liberals. One after another denomination fell toliberal theology that taught that the world was not created in six days, thathell is not real, that women can be pastors, and that miracles neverhappened—sometimes even including Jesus’ own resurrection! This touched our ownsynod in the form of Seminex in the 1960s and 70s as professors at the St.Louis seminary, the senior college at Ft. Wayne, and some of our colleges beganteaching these false doctrines. They espoused nearly all the views I justmentioned. And the graduates from these institutions received diplomas from aseminary.

 What stopped them? Who pushed back againstthese false teachers? It was primarily the laity. Those sitting in the pewheard what was being taught and knew that a wolf had gotten into the church.They didn’t look like wolves. They wore collars, they preached, they cloakedtheir language to seem appealing. But a number of daring laity and pastorsrepudiated this teaching and exposed the wolves for who they really were.

 So if diplomas and certification don’t help,what should you do? All three of our texts for today tell us what to do. Allthree of our texts offer warnings about false prophets.

 Our Old Testament reading tells us to watch outfor two things: first, those who tell you that everything is fine, and secondthose who tell you about themselves. Jeremiah says, “They say continually tothose who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyonewho stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you’”(17). The way we see this today is when people encourage you to do somethingand then say that you won’t suffer any consequences for it. There are alwaysconsequences for our actions. If you engage in destructive behavior, you willbe destroyed. If you despise God’s word, it will not be well with you. Do notstubbornly follow your own heart and desires. The second thing Jeremiah says isabout the false prophets of his day: “I have heard what the prophets have saidwho prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’”(25). This is a warning to pastors: we should not be relying on what we dreamup for preaching. Rather, what also should pastors be teaching? The message ofChrist. We all need Jesus. We need to hear about what he has done for us. Hedied in our place to forgive us of our sins. We sin every day. We need to hearthat and take it to heart. Christ did not die on the cross for pastors to talkabout themselves during a whole sermon.

 Our Epistle lesson changes tone a bit. Paul isspeaking with the elders and pastors of the church in Ephesus. He cannot cometo visit them, because he must continue on to Jerusalem. Nonetheless, his wordsare pertinent for us today. What did Paul strive to do? “For I did not shrinkfrom declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (28). What this means isthat Paul taught all of Scripture—Law and Gospel, the incarnation of Christ,the teaching of the Lord’s Supper, predestination, and everything that istaught. Some teachings of Scripture are easier to digest than others. Sometimesthe difficulty lies in things that are contrary to how the world works—that wastrue in Paul’s day as it is in ours. Sometimes the difficulty lies in logicallyunderstanding it, and I get that, but even something like predestination isvery comforting to the Christian.

 Nonetheless, St. Paul warns that false teacherswill come, as they came in Jeremiah’s day. Not that false teachers might come,but that they will, and they will try to draw away disciples after themselves.But what does he give them to protect themselves? This is a wonderful Bibleverse: “And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is ableto build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified”(32). What builds each of us up? What does Paul point us to? The word of God’sgrace. We are strengthened and encouraged by this word. It gives us the joy toendure each day. It also gives us the strength and wisdom to recognize when weare receiving false messages. And, this word of grace reminds us of the reasonfor clinging to the Scripture: we ought to grasp the inheritance of salvationthat God gives to us.

 In our Gospel lesson, Jesus of course dealswith false prophets too. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you insheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them bytheir fruits” (15–16). You, the laity, have the duty to learn the doctrine bywhich you must judge your teachers. How else can you judge the teaching of yourpastor except on the basis of God’s holy Word? You cannot assume that just becausehe went to the seminary, is ordained, and claims to be faithful to God’s Word thatthis means that is his faithful to God’s Word. The only way to know if your pastoris faithful is if you learn for yourself what God’s Word teaches.

 This begins by reading the Bible and learning theSmall Catechism and perhaps delving a bit deeper as well. Just as you can listento a pastor’s preaching and teaching, that is, the seed that he sows, you can alsoobserve the fruit that develops. Now, what are the fruits of true prophets? Thisis the life of faith that the pastors demonstrate. It is the good works that hedoes and how he conducts himself. It’s also the sure knowledge of salvationthat he himself has and that he wishes to share with those who hear him. Jesus says,“This is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son andbelieves in him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up on the lastday” (John 6:40). The fruit of the true prophet is the true faith, which looksto Jesus as the way, the true, and the life. True faith rests secure in the deathand resurrection of Jesus, knowing that his suffering has set us free.

 And so, it is my prayer that you would listento me, your pastor, preaching God’s Word and that you would recognize the falsedoctrine of the world. Read the word of God in the Bible. Do not be afraid toask me questions. I love to hear them. For just as a good doctor wants to healyou and wants to make sure you know how he is trying to help, so too does agood pastor care for you and wish to give you what is healing and what saves.So study, judge, and take the Scriptures to heart.

 Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding,keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.