Beware Of Ravenous Wolves Series

Allow me to begin with an illustration: As Little Red Riding Hood is heading to her grandmother’s house; a wolf comes along and finds out where she lives. He travels ahead, enters the house, and eats the grandmother! When Little Red Riding Hood arrives, she notices her grandmother’s unusual appearance. She says, “What a deep voice you have!” “The better to greet you with,” replies the wolf. “My goodness! What big eyes you have!” “The better to see you with,” replies the wolf. “And what big hands you have!” “The better to embrace you with,” says the wolf. And lastly, “What a big mouth you have!” “The better to eat you with” he replies. At which point, the wolf jumps out of bed and gobbles her up!(1) Things are not always as they seem; and this is the lesson that Jesus shares in our passage today.

A Warning About False Teachers (v. 15)

15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

When we hear the word “prophet,” we might think of someone who sees and proclaims the future. In Deuteronomy 18:19-22, a “false prophet” is defined as one “who presumes to speak a word in [the Lord’s] name, which [He has] not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods” (v. 20); and the test of a false prophet is said to be this: “If the thing [he proclaims] does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken” (v. 22). Commentator Matthew Henry says that “prophets are properly such as foretell things to come,” but they can also be false teachers “who preach false doctrine” and “who teach that which is contrary to the truth as it is in Jesus.”(2)

The false prophets that Jesus referred to “are not [the] Pharisees or Sadducees.”(3) Commentator Adam Clarke says that by false prophets, we are meant to understand them as false preachers and “teachers of erroneous doctrines, who come professing a commission from God, but whose aim is not to bring the heavenly treasure to the people.”(4) They are instead focused on extracting earthly treasure for themselves. They are “teachers who preach for hire . . . ravenous wolves, whose design is to feed themselves with the fat, and clothe themselves with fleece, and thus ruin, instead of save the flock.”(5) They “magnify themselves, not Jesus Christ; and their purpose is to exploit people, not edify them.”(6)

Jesus called them “ravenous wolves” (v. 15), which is where we get our expression “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In that day and time, “when the shepherd watched his flocks upon the hillsides, his garment was a sheepskin, worn with the skin outside and the fleece inside.” In a similar fashion, the prophets, who were “shepherds” of God’s people, wore a sheepskin garment. This explains Elijah’s mantle (1 Kings 19:13, 19), which is described as a hairy cloak (2 Kings 1:8). Commentator William Barlcay tells us, “That the sheepskin mantle had become the uniform of the prophets . . . It was by that mantle that the prophet could be distinguished from other men. But sometimes that garb was worn by those who had no right to wear it . . . There were those who wore a prophet’s cloak, who lived anything but a prophet’s life.”(7)

In Acts 20:29-30, the Apostle Paul warned the elders at Ephesus, telling them, “After my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.” The aim of these “savage wolves” and false shepherds would be to gain a following for personal glory and financial gain. In 2 Corinthians 2:17, Paul said that he ministered in a different way, declaring this: “For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.”

In John 10:10, Jesus declared, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” We often identify the thief as Satan, but in context, Jesus was speaking about false teachers and preachers. Listen, as I continue reading from the passage. In verses 11-13, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.” Jesus described a false teacher as being a just “hireling” (vv. 12, 13). He is not a shepherd, just someone paid to do a job; and as a result, he is not invested in the flock, and could care less about the welfare of the sheep.