Spiritual Treachery - [2 Peter 2:1-3]

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You know, this week, as I like to do, I like to look for some really spiffy quotes to kind of spice things up.
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And I did some historical research, and I found some quotes that you probably haven't heard before. Did you know that before the
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Battle of Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee was addressing his troops, and he said, men,
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I want to tell you something. Those Union guys are pretty nice. I wouldn't worry about shooting them.
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Have you heard that one before? I don't know if you're familiar with that quote. How about this one? Napoleon to his troops right before Waterloo.
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He said, my friends, give rest to your weapons. The armies approaching are our friends. I had to do a lot of research to find those.
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Those are pretty ridiculous. We wouldn't go for those for a minute, that is, if we know anything about history.
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And yet, we have a similar situation in today's church. We have the enemy approaching, only they're not wearing the opposite uniform.
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They're not wearing a different color. They're wearing our uniform. They look like us. They're inside the camp.
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And today's church is asleep, oblivious to the situation. In fact, you are criticized today if you dare say anything negative about these enemies of the faith.
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How many of you have ever heard of the name Quisling? Anybody, any of you younger people know
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Quisling? I don't really know if you count, Mrs.
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Smith. Mr. Quisling was a
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German, or sorry, he was a Norwegian officer and someone who had worked in the
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Norwegian government. And when the Germans invaded in April of 1940, they invaded
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Norway by air and sea. And they wanted to capture the king, the king of Norway, and the prime minister, the one who actually ran the government.
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However, at the last minute, the Norwegian leaders had been tipped off, and they fled to another location.
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The Germans were disappointed because they'd expected a complete surrender, a complete capitulation. And they approached this man,
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Quisling, who was well -known, well -respected. They went to him, and they encouraged him to form a government.
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And he drew up a list of ministers, and he made a pronouncement and said he wanted all hostilities, he wanted all the
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Norwegian forces to stop fighting at once. And the
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Germans, having seen, or knowing that there was an advantage in having a
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Norwegian run the government, they declared the monarchy to be abolished, and they put him in charge of the entire country.
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Now, that word Quisling is now synonymous with traitor.
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It's like Benedict Arnold, only, I guess, the European version. He turned on his own people. He's known as a traitor.
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He is scorned. That name is one of, I'm sure nobody carries it with any pride whatsoever.
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And after the war was over, of course, he was executed. Treachery is a serious thing.
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And within the church itself, spiritual treachery, traitors within the campus, something that ought not be, and it's something we need to be aware of.
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Why? Because they're coming, Peter says, and they're here now. Let's look at 2
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Peter 2, verses 1 to 3. Kind of rename this,
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Profiles in Treachery. I thought of John F. Kennedy's books, Profiles in Courage. This is Profiles in Treachery.
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2 Peter, chapter 2, verses 1 to 3. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
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Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of truth will be maligned.
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And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones, great Welsh preacher, said this. Of all the chapters which are found in the entire
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Bible, this second chapter of the second epistle of Peter is among the most terrible.
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For threatening, for warning, for the idea of doom and disaster and destruction, there is nowhere in Holy Writ itself which surpasses this particular chapter.
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Pretty strong. This evening, much like a true briefing before a battle,
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I'm going to draw your attention to the warning Peter gave his readers. That the enemy is coming.
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And I'm also going to give you his word picture of what to watch for, so that you will be on your guard, protecting your family, your friends, and even this church from the enemy.
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In a war, having been in the army, I remember one of the coolest things I think I ever got while I was in the army was a deck of playing cards.
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And you think, what was so great about that? Well, it had all the Soviet weaponry, the planes and everything on the cards.
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So, you know, the idea was while you're playing cards, you would study them. I never opened the cellophane because I just thought it was too cool to have the, you know,
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I wanted to protect it so I could sell it later. I don't know what I was thinking about. But much like a briefing before battle,
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I want to give this to you because in a war, you learn what the enemy looks like, what his weapons are, what his tendencies are.
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That's how you win a war. That's how you win anything. And there are infiltrators, betrayers, spies, even minions of Satan, followers of Satan within the walls of evangelicalism today.
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You have to be ready. So listen first to his warning, then to, get this, the 10 qualities, 10 qualities of spiritual traitors that he gives us so that you will be prepared to identify the enemy within the camp.
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First, let's look at Peter's warning. In police jargon, we'd call this a bolo. What's a bolo? Anybody know?
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Be on the lookout, keep your eyes peeled, watch out for this. Usually had to do with a vehicle, but it could be a person.
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In this case, it is Peter saying, be on the lookout for these people. He says, but false prophets also arose among the people just as there will also be false teachers among you.
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Well, let's look back at the context for a minute, see where we are here in 2 Peter. Peter opened his letter with a reminder of the great blessings and promises that belong to every believer in Christ, even that we have become partakers of the divine nature.
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He then exhorted his readers to prove themselves, prove to themselves that they were owned by Christ by checking their growth in several
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Christ -like areas. In verses 12 to 15, he kind of gave us his own little ministry of reminding.
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I mean, I remember that sermon because it had one point. I'm here to remind you, remember these things because I'm gonna remind you about them.
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And then in verses 16 to 21, where we were last time, Peter reminded his readers of the superiority of scripture even above the greatest experience that anyone ever had, and that being when
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Peter, James, and John were allowed to see the transfiguration of Christ, the revealed glory of the
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Savior. And Peter's primary emphasis at the end of chapter one was to affirm the word of God.
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But by extension, he didn't just affirm the word of God, he affirmed the men who wrote that word, the prophets of the
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Old Testament, those who yielded themselves to the Holy Spirits. And now in continuing that, he is contrasting the faithfulness of the
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Old Testament prophets, the sure word that they gave us with these false teachers.
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There's a contrast coming. He's going, this is what they were like. These were the true prophets.
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These were the true men of God and God's word. And now
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I'm gonna tell you about the false prophets, the false ones who are going to come. Just as Israel itself had false prophets in its history,
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Peter was warning the readers that they can anticipate the same sort of charlatanism to rise again among the people of God.
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I love what MacArthur says here. He says, listen, he says, the church is one of Satan's primary spheres of operation.
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The church is one of Satan's primary spheres of operation.
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The church. Do you think this is important now? As I've said before,
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Peter was no innovator. He didn't make things up. He was a good student. What did
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Jesus say about false prophets? Matthew 7, you don't have to turn there. Verses 15 to 20, he said, beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
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They look good, but on the inside, they want to devour you. Verse 16, you will know them by their fruits.
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Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? The answer is, you don't get grapes out of thorn bushes.
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You don't get figs from thistles. So he makes the same, the comparison. So every good tree, a true prophet bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
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A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
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And 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.
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You are to be fruit inspectors. That's what Jesus said.
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He said, watch out for those people. And then in the future, what was to come after that, after Jesus said that?
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The apostles Paul and John warned of false teachers. And Peter is talking about a time that was yet to arrive.
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He says, the false teachers are coming. They're on their way. And later on, Jude would say they're here.
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In Jude verse four, Jude one, four, for those who can't stand not having it.
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Jude four, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation.
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Ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
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Peter said, they're coming. Jude said, they're here. And as we're gonna see, Peter said, they are going to creep in.
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And Jude says, yep, that's what they did. They crept in, they snuck in. So now let's look at this, the profile of spiritual traitors, these
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Benedict Arnold's, these Quislings. Not every single false teacher is going to have every single one of these character traits.
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I mean, in one sense it's a bit like working with a police sketch artist. You give some description and they do a little bit and then you give a little bit more and they do a little bit more.
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And gradually the picture comes into clear focus and we see exactly who it is that we're dealing with.
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And it's the same here. They may only have a seven out of the 10 or they may have two out of the 10 or they may have all 10 or they may have one that's so bad that it just outweighs everything else and you don't even care about the other nine.
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The first characteristic of a false teacher is that they are stealthy. They are stealthy, they are sneaky.
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Look again at verse one. There will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies.
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Now, wouldn't it be great if false teachers went around with sandwich boards, you know, those old things that they used to show in the black and white movies for you kids.
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You know, on one side, maybe the sandwich board would say false teacher. And on the other side, it could say, if you listen to me, you're going straight to hell.
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That would be nice. That'd be perfect. False teacher, let me see. Let me see the other side.
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What happens if I follow you? Okay, I don't wanna go there. Who was the first false teacher?
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Satan. Satan, and think about what he did. Did he say, did he show up in the garden of Eden and say, hey,
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I'm a false teacher. Can I talk to you for a minute? Like to just discuss a few things with you. No, he slithered in and he led
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Eve to disregard what God had said by making some slight alterations. He just tweaked things a little bit.
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And that's what false teachers do. They're often quite clever. They may not announce that they've received a message from an angel.
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They may not say that everything you've ever believed is wrong or that the truth has been missing for 1 ,800 years.
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What they're gonna try and do is, they're gonna try and go under the radar for a while. They're gonna try to look authentic.
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They're going to try to come in and just maybe teach some truth and just kind of mix it with a little bit of air over a period of time.
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You'll see some of them on TV and they're gonna say, you know, this has always been true, but it's like the church has just forgotten this for a while.
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Let me revisit this old truth for you. They're not gonna say I'm lying.
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Of course they're not gonna say that. And that's the whole idea of secretly introducing. It carries the idea of smuggling, of sneaking something in.
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You know, how you kind of, you know, you go to the movie theater and you put all your candy in your pockets and stuff like that.
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You got any candy? What makes you say that, you know? But look around at all that is being done under the label, under the category of Christian and ask yourself, well, what isn't happening in the name of Christ today?
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I mean, think about it. Just give me some things that are happening within the church today that you just go, those things are unbiblical.
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Anything, any one at all. How about I'll give you one? Okay. How about homosexual church leaders?
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I mean, you just, you think about that and you go, how did that happen? And why is that even up for debate?
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How about church leaders? When Dr. Lawson was here, church leaders who equivocate on whether Christ is the only way to heaven or maybe they even deny it.
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How about Christians that affirm a woman's right to choose?
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There are so many things going on, you know, anyone can say that they're a Christian. And who are you to judge whether they're a
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Christian or not? Judge not.
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These things, all those homosexual leaders, whatever, whatever the sins are that are now accepted, would not have been accepted without a long preparation, a long period of preparation, a watering down of the truth.
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A kind of, well, that's your opinion, I've got my opinion. A steady introduction by stealthy means of false doctrine.
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Little tweaks, little twists, little adjustments, a little turning of the knob.
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That's what they do, they're stealthy, they're sneaky. Second characteristic, they are destructive.
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They are destructive. Sneaky, destructive, sounds like you need to call
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Terminex. They're sneaking into your head. Well, it is, that's right. They eat, they eat and they eat and they destroy the foundations of the church.
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Lloyd -Jones said, the greatest danger confronting us today is the danger that arises from false prophets and false teachers.
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The greatest danger confronting us today, the church, is the danger that arises from false prophets and false teachers.
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And again, they kind of come in stealth mode. They've got their sheep's clothing on, their wolves inside, they are total sneaks.
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And what they are teaching, these destructive heresies, literally means heresies of destruction, teachings that are incompatible with Christianity.
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It is spiritual arsenic, it's poison. The root for heresies comes from the verb, speaking of choice, to choose.
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And it's generally applied to a sect, a division within a given religion. And it just means opinions.
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You know, I've got a different opinion, so I'm of Paul or I'm of Apollos.
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It's that kind of sect idea. But these false teachers take it further, obviously.
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And they're going to bring in their own opinions, their own ideas, but with a subtlety that keeps their external
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Christianity, their cover intact. They look just like sheep.
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But these teachings are not okay. They are not matters of opinion. They lead to destruction, eternal ruination.
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But that's just my opinion. They are going to introduce destructive heresies.
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Third, they are deniers of Christ. They are deniers of Christ.
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Look again at verse one. Even denying the master who bought them. Now this is like, this particular part of the passage is like the annual
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Shepherd's Conference Q &A for John MacArthur. People will line up at the microphones and they wait their turn.
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And it's like, which one is going to ask about 2 Peter 2, 1 first? Because somebody's going to ask, well, are they saved or did they lose their salvation?
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This is quite the controversial passage. Does it mean that you can lose your salvation?
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After all, the master bought them, but they deny him. They must be saved if he bought them.
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Well, how do we know that they're not Christians? Because we keep reading through the passage and we see that they are heading for destruction.
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That's not what happens to Christians. Second, the language here reveals the extent of their disobedience.
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The word master is not the one that is typically used for master. In fact, I think it occurs 10 times in the
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New Testament. And it is the word from which we get our word, despot. Or despot, who knows what that is?
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Despot, a tyrant, absolute dictator. And it indicates that this master is entitled to absolute obedience, unquestioning obedience.
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He would never cry about it. But it is also, this word is never used to talk about Jesus within the gospels.
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It's, he's referred to as master, but it's a different word. They never use this word of Jesus in the gospels.
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And the person to whom this applies has supreme authority. It indicates a master -slave relationship.
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And that master has gone and purchased this slave out of the marketplace. That's the concept here.
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By passing themselves off, by coming in stealthily and passing themselves off as genuine teachers of the truth and instead secretly introducing destructive heresies, they prove themselves to be faithful disciples of Christ, followers of Christ.
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What did Jesus say? If you love me, keep my commandments. He said, in John 17, praying to the father, he said, sanctify my followers in truth.
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Thy word is truth. These are those who don't love Jesus. They don't follow him.
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They don't obey him. They don't love his word. Jesus also said that those who worship
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God will worship in spirit and in truth. They don't do that either. These false teachers care nothing about the truth.
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There is one truth. And therefore they care nothing about the truth giver. They disobey
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Christ. They therefore deny his lordship over them. Jesus Christ is
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Lord, not because we make him Lord, but because that is his status. We are his slaves.
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We are to be his faithful slaves. These people are not. They deny his lordship by their lives, which we'll discuss here.
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So first they are stealthy. Second, they are destructive. Third, they are deniers of Christ.
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And fourth, they are destroyers of souls. They are destroyers of souls.
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And they are destroyers of souls in two respects. First, they are heading for destruction themselves.
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Again, look at verse one. Bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
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Bringing is a present active participle. The false teachers are consistently, in an ongoing way, it is characteristic of them denying the authority of Christ, if not in all of their teachings, certainly in some of it, and with their lives, certainly.
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And that is going to bring them to a place of destruction. It says they bring destruction upon themselves.
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Their own actions do it. Man is responsible. Man is responsible.
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God is sovereign. Man is responsible. Their judgment is poised over their heads like a veritable sword of Damocles.
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It's waiting. It's poised. It's ready to cut loose at any moment. They deserve it.
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They did it themselves. And only the grace of God prevents his swift and horrible judgment from being unleashed upon them, his enemies.
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They are disguised as his servants, but by their lives, they deny him and they bring destruction upon themselves.
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And this destruction involves all that is the precise opposite of salvation.
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Everything that is promised to those who believe in terms of salvation, freedom from sin, all the glories that go with being with Christ forever, it is the exact opposite, is that word destruction.
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So that's the first aspect that they're destroying themselves. Secondly, they're going to take many with them.
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Look at verse two. Many will follow. Did a word study on many and it means many, a lot, more than a few.
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It's a lot of people that are going to follow. And is that surprising? Is it surprising?
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No. What did Jesus say? Many are on the narrow road. It's going to get really backed up.
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And I don't know how we're going to get everybody through, but that broad road that leads to destruction, there's only going to be a few people on it.
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I think I had that mixed up. Narrow is the way and few that find it and broad is the road that leads to destruction.
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Many will follow these false teachers. Listen to what
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Paul writes, 2 Timothy. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside the myths.
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People want to hear what they want to hear. It's no surprise that this is going to happen because it is the natural condition of man to want to hear something nice.
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That verb, excuse me, will follow. Means that they are going to accept as authoritative.
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They are going to accept as authoritative what this person says, what this false teacher says to the point that he is going to determine the course of their lives.
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They are going to obey him. False teachers reject the lordship of Christ, but in effect they are granted lordship over others.
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And the result is that many will receive the same judgment as their masters.
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They lead many to destruction and destruction. Our fifth characteristic, false teachers, is that they lack self -control.
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They lack self -control. Again, in verse two, many will follow their sensuality.
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Now you might be saying, well, why would somebody in the church be duped by someone who is marked by someone who is known by their sensuality?
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After all, this word sensuality means a comprehensive, this is a definition, a comprehensive expression for evil and perversion.
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It is one of the vices that destroy an individual from within, in Mark 7 .22, the same words used there.
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The perversity of Sodom and Gomorrah, 2 Peter 2, verse seven, consisted of it.
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It is characteristic of godless paganism. This is the kind of thing that you would expect to find the
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Temple of Artemis, Diana, in Ephesus. But again, what do we say about them?
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They are stealthy, they're sneaky. They don't flaunt this aspect of it, although these days you can almost get away with that too.
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You get caught, and what do you do? You go on TV, you cry for a little bit, you set up some rehab program, and then you ignore it, and a month later you're back on the air.
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That's how they work. Many false teachers today have been revealed to be without a shred of self -control.
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Which is fascinating, because Christians are known for what? Self -control, that's what we should be known for.
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Galatians 5 .24, listen to how this is phrased after he said, this is the fruit of the Spirit. In Galatians 5 .24,
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he says this, Paul says, now those who belong to Christ Jesus, Christians, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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And these people, these false teachers, are exactly the opposite. These men and women hold themselves to a different standard, and their followers accept it.
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After all, who among us is perfect? TV reports show them in sin, not a problem.
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Deny, attack, that's what they do. All right, the sixth characteristic, they bring reproach upon Christ.
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Again, verse two, and because of them, the way of truth will be maligned. When you think about that, it really goes hand -in -hand with sensuality.
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Excuse me, unbelievers who have no claim on Christianity see the way that so -called
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Christians behave, and what do they do? They mock the truth, they attack it.
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Christians are hypocrites. In fact, the verb, the root word of the verb translated maligned is blasphemao, from which we get blasphemy.
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They blaspheme the way of truth, they attack it, why?
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Because of the actions of Christians. They bring shame to the name of Christianity.
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And that concept of shame in the ancient world was quite significant, now it's almost vanished.
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But it really is kind of something, it's old -fashioned in some ways, but it's still alive in the
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Eastern world. I was stationed in Okinawa, it's where I met my wife, and I went to one happy payday to go get myself a
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Nikon camera. And I went to a little camera store, went in there, met the vendor, got what
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I wanted, you know, the best, only the best, because I loved to spend money, that was all
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I did. Got out of the army with absolutely nothing, but that's a whole other story. Unsafe people do stupid things.
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And I got that camera, and I just kind of, I made a down payment, and I said, you know what, I'll be back next week, or whatever it is, to pay it off.
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And so then I went down to the record store, and I went to another camera store, and I walked in there, and I just thought, oh, you know, just for fun,
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I'll just ask this guy how much for the same getup I just got from the other guy. And it was like $200 less, and I'm going back to the first store, and I said, hey,
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I need my money back. And he goes, what's going on? And I said, well, I went to a second store, and they're willing to give me a much better deal, like $200 less, and he goes,
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I don't believe you. And I said, what are you saying, I'm lying? He goes, yeah.
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So I went back to the second store, I got a written estimate, I came back to the first store, and I showed this guy, now he was
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Japanese, should have seen his face. You should have seen his face, it was like,
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I had stuck a dagger right into his heart, he was so embarrassed, because he called me a liar, and now the shame was all his.
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He couldn't stop, I mean, he lowered the price, he couldn't throw enough free stuff at me, because he understood the concept of shame.
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He was ashamed of his behavior, we've lost that now. But that's this idea of bringing shame, of causing someone to blaspheme
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Christianity is to bring shame on it, to have somebody think such a bad thing about Christianity, and that's what they do by their actions.
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They bring that shame, they cause people to malign. Remember what
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Gandhi said, I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your
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Christ. By our behavior, we bring reproach upon the name of Christ. We can.
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The difference is, we feel that shame if we do that. They don't, it means nothing to them.
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It means absolutely nothing to them. They bring reproach upon Christ.
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First, they're stealthy, second, they're destructive, third, they're deniers of Christ, fourth, they're destroyers of souls.
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Fifth, they lack self -control. Sixth, they bring reproach upon Christ. Sixth, they are greedy. Verse three, and in their greed.
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The truth is, they simply cannot have enough money. Whatever material things they have cannot satisfy them.
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There is never enough. Let me give you a little profile in greed here while I'm doing profiles.
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In 1998, two members of a false teacher's inner circle died of heroin overdoses.
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In 1999, after one of his many vows of reform, he fired several board members and he hired an ex -cop, always a good thing to do, to do an internal investigation of his ministry.
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But this ex -cop did such a good job taking hundreds of depositions, that is testimony, and getting to the bottom of the heroin use that the false teacher then sued the man he hired.
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And while this ex -cop was still head of his security detachment, he filed a lawsuit demanding all the files that this cop had be turned over because the public release could result in the end of his ministry.
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This false teacher has said, in his own words, I don't need gold in heaven,
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I've got to have it now. During 1990, or in 1993, his one year of reform, he talked about being stung by being portrayed as a millionaire and how he wanted to be more
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Christ -like. His solution, the Lord told him to sell his Mercedes -Benz and his watch, so he got rid of them.
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He didn't give them away, he sold them. And then he replaced them with nicer things.
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TV show did a profile on him and they interviewed a number of his critics. And some of the things that were revealed here is that his ministry raises more than $100 million annually.
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His salary is somewhere between half a million and a million dollars. He gets royalties from his books, personal perks for him, his family, his entourage included a $10 million seaside mansion, a private jet with annual operating costs of about $1 .5
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million, Mercedes SUV, convertible, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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Man of God, that's what he would tell you. Greed, never enough, never enough.
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If you see him on TV today, he'll be asking for money. He can never have enough. Not just greedy, but next, exploitative, exploitative.
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Again, look at verse three. And in their greed, they will exploit you. The verb here is interesting in the
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Greek, it is emporomai, might be saying it not quite right, but it's the word from which we get emporium, which is a, if you go into an emporium, it is a store.
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And so the picture here is that they will, these false teachers will buy and sell people.
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They will make merchandise of people. Of course, that's not literal. But here's the main point, they don't care about you.
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They have no burden for the souls of men. They are out for one thing and that is for themselves.
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If we were to look at what the New Testament says about a pastor, about a shepherd, about someone who's called to lead the flock of God, that's not them.
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The picture instead is of a wolf whose desire is to shear the sheep and cash in the wool.
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After all, these false teachers don't need gold in heaven. They gotta have it now.
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They serve a master and that master is themselves. They are not only greedy and exploitative, they are also deceivers.
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Again, look at verse three. They will exploit you with false words. I saw one man this week, well -known preacher.
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Let me back up on that. Well -known Christian leader. A well -known leader of a
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Christian assembly. I'm trying to figure out exactly how to phrase this. Anyway, he's basically seen as one of the leading lights of Christendom.
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And he was asked about this latest Newsweek article where they say Christianity is in decline. What are you gonna do about it?
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He says, well, I don't see it that way. I see people hungry for faith.
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Really? Where is there anything like that in the Bible? I see people hungering for faith.
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Of course, he was about to sell out a baseball stadium full of people when he did that. But that word there, false, in verse three.
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False is from the same word that we get plastic. And the idea is that they're artificially crafted words.
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They're made up words. They're things that are amazingly enough designed to tickle the ears of the hearers.
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They're conformed into exactly the image that the hearer would want to hear. Malleable words.
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They're comforting words, soft words, which can only lead to a hardening of the heart against the truth.
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But they sound so good. They're so appealing. They're so comforting. They're so familiar.
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Remember once hearing a very familiar voice, and I'll never forget this experience. I was still in the army.
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We were on what's called an army readiness training exercise. And just to kind of set this up a little bit, we had to dig this, what do you call those things that you dig?
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Foxhole, yeah, thank you. Entrenchment is the fancy word. We had a foxhole, and a two -man foxhole, and we had a tent behind it.
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We set up this perimeter, and we were on what was called 50 % watch, which meant one of us, either me or the other guy in the foxhole, had to be awake all night long.
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We had to take turns going inside the tent and sleeping. And so here we are.
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Here's the foxhole. I'm on this side. The tent's right behind me. And I hear somebody moving from inside the camp, inside the camp, but I hear his voice, and I'm going, you know what?
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I think I know that guy. I think it sounds like a sergeant I know. And he's coming up, and he asked me a question, and it's not quite the right question, but it didn't sound so bad.
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And so I think I said something like, well, what's the password? Because we all had a password.
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And he came around, you know, right around, if this is the tent, he came right around that corner, and he shined his flashlight, and he said, you're dead.
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Well, what he didn't know is I had figured something was wrong, and I'd moved over to the other side of the foxhole, and so I just leveled my
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M16 at him, and I said, no, you're dead. We have to be on alert.
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We have to be ready. We'll hear that voice. We'll think, you know, that's familiar.
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That sounds good. That sounds right to me. But what do we do? Well, we have to compare it with Scripture. We always have to look at Scripture.
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They're gonna give us these plastic words, these fake words, these made -up words, and try to deceive us.
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They've marketed these phrases. They've tested them. They've perfected them. Satan has had thousands of years to perfect false
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Gospels. They appeal to us. Our flesh longs to go after them.
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So many people want some spirituality in their lives, but they don't want to submit to Christ, and so these things will appeal to them.
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Our 10th and final characteristic of false teachers, and this is kind of a two -headed last point, but they are oblivious and headed for oblivion.
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They're oblivious. They don't have a clue what's going on, not really, not in some ways, and they are headed for oblivion.
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They were long ago judged. Look at verse three again. Their judgment from long ago is not idle.
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Further evidence that these false teachers cannot be Christians, or Christians who have lost their salvation, their judgment is from long ago.
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If they just lost their salvation, if they were saved and their judgment was from long ago, well, that wouldn't be right.
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How could God judge them long ago for something they hadn't done yet? And of course, if they were
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Christians, they wouldn't really be facing judgment at all. Their judgment would have been paid for in Christ, but this idea of long ago, this is an ancient decree, not a recent development.
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It's fair to say that they brought this destruction upon themselves, I said earlier, Peter said earlier, and that is the human responsibility side of it.
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Man is responsible. And this is the divine sovereignty side of it. God is the judge.
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He judged them long ago. God was not surprised by their treachery.
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In fact, he decreed their judgment long, long ago. And if we look to just kind of get an idea of what long ago might have meant, later in the context, we see
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Peter talking about Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood, fallen angels, all those things happened long ago.
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This wasn't last week, two weeks ago. They were judged a long time ago.
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And also their destruction awaits, again, verse three, and their destruction is not asleep.
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How could this destruction, the eternal ruin of these false teachers be asleep?
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Well, the answer is it couldn't. Just as God himself does not slumber, just as he himself does not sleep, the destruction he long ago decreed for these false teachers does not sleep.
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Do you think that there's anything that God hates more than those who teach false doctrine, than those who distort his word, those who would lead people astray, than those who do so, moreover, to satisfy their own lusts, their own greed?
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What's interesting, when I said that, they're clueless, they're oblivious. If you thought, if you recognized, if you were a false teacher and you thought, you know, someday
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I'm going to stand before God and I'm gonna have to give an answer for everything that I've done and I'm in a lot of trouble,
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I don't think you can go to sleep at night. But they don't operate like that. They're not in fear of God.
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They're oblivious to it. They just kind of go on their merry way. Whatever happens, you know, whatever tomorrow brings, they've got their gold today.
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They're feeling good today, right now. But they're going to try to justify themselves.
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Jesus said in Matthew 7, and I think these are the people he's talking about. Many will say to me on that day, on that day of judgment,
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Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons?
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And in your name perform many miracles? Turn on TV. This is what they do all day long.
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And Jesus is going to say to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.
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Interesting. The exact words there, practice lawlessness. This describes their entire life.
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They're separate from the law. They don't want anything to do with it. I mean, think about it.
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What are some of the things that false teachers teach? They minimize sin. You can watch them for hours without them talking about sin.
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They minimize the gospel. You'll never hear them preach the gospel. Why? Because it's not that important to them.
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Salvation from sin is not that important. They're not saved. They don't care if anybody else gets saved. It's all about money.
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It's all about lust. It's all about greed. They minimize the gospel as a means of salvation, but they maximize it as a means of health and wealth, of prosperity.
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They minimize some attributes of God, his holiness, his righteousness, his justice, and they maximize attributes like love, generosity.
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God's nice. He's my pal. We hang around. What else do they do?
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They minimize or distort scripture. They minimize it by relying on other means.
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I love the one, my favorite one is this universal law. In order to get something, you have to give something.
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That's a universal law, and I'm like, okay, universal. What is that? Is that written in the stars somewhere? How do you figure that out?
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Universal laws, they have dreams, they get new revelation, new insights, but they don't teach the
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Bible systematically. They hop, skip, and they jump their way through the scriptures. They don't camp out and walk through a passage.
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Why? Because it wouldn't do. It wouldn't meet their ends. It wouldn't give them what they wanted. They distort it by taking verses out of context and assigning inaccurate interpretations.
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This is what they do. Every believer, every single one of us has to be on the lookout for these people.
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They are stealthy, destructive, deniers of Christ. They are destroyers of souls.
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They lack self -control. They bring reproach upon Christ. They are greedy.
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They are exploitative. They are deceivers, and they are oblivious and headed for oblivion, headed for destruction.
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And every single believer is charged with being on the lookout for them and understanding one simple thing.
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They will arise from what is the church, what appears to be the church. They will certainly say that they're
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Christians or they wouldn't lead anybody astray. What can you do about it?
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First of all, you could pray for the elders here. You could pray that we would never fall into this category. You would pray that we would be kept from such things.
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You know, when it comes to friends and family, I think our first instinct is kind of beat people over the head and shoulders when they're going and listening to false teachers.
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I think a much better approach is to give them the truth and to allow them to kind of compare the two for themselves.
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Believers over time will go, you know, I'm pretty sick and tired of getting this watered down gruel.
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It reminds me of this movie where Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, the original one, where he says, grandpa,
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I'm tired of cabbage water. These people are getting cabbage water. It's spoiled cabbage water.
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It's horrible cabbage water. And that's all they get day after day, week after week. And then they come over and they get a fine steak dinner.
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Sooner or later, they're gonna go for the steak dinner. And that's what we do. We just set the truth up there and we let, the people of God will respond to the word of God.
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It may not happen overnight, but it will happen over time. False teachers, they're here.
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They're a real threat. And there is nothing more important than we can do. I mean, if the
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Christian life can be summarized this way, we cling onto that which is right. We hold fast to these truths and we reject everything that is what?
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That is false. We reject utterly these false teachers and we cling to the sure word of Christ.
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And that's what he was, that's his whole argument here. He says, listen, I want you guys to focus on the
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Bible. I want you to be experts in the Bible. All these, the great experiences
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I've had cling to the more sure word. And now I'm gonna tell you about the false teachers that are gonna come in and try to lead you away.
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Bottom line is we need to stick to the more sure word. Let's pray.
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Father, what a blessing it is that we have your word. What a blessing it is that you have kept us from false teachers, that you have shielded us.
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Certainly Lord, if it wasn't for your grace, we like many others would be led astray by their words that are designed, honed, crafted over many centuries to appeal to the unconverted.
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Father, would you give us a love for those who are under false teaching?
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Would you give us a humility to know that everything that we do know is by your grace.
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And Father, to go to them in humility, to just coax them, encourage them to just examine these things and see what they are.
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So Father again, we thank you for your more sure word. And Lord, we love the things that you love.
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Father, let us fix our eyes firmly on Jesus Christ that we might not be distracted to the left or the right.