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Calls them in this passage is false prophets, and he calls them false teachers. These two terms are interchangeable. If someone's a false teacher, they're also a false prophet. And one week ago I gave the big idea of these verses, and here it is again.
The big idea is to prepare to face the grim reality of false teachers. And in these three verses, I have observed seven practices as how you are to prepare to face this grim reality of the presence of them all over the place.
One week ago, we saw the first three. We prepare for them by realizing that false teachers have always been inside the church. By knowing that they twist the scriptures, and thirdly, by understanding that they will be destroyed by the one they reject.
Now this brings us to where we are in our text, but before we look at point four, let's read the text, 2 Peter 2, verses 1 through 3. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
So here's our big idea. Once again, prepare to face the grim reality of false teachers. And here is the fourth practice. How? Coming to grips that many will be deceived. Okay, as I say what I'm saying in this sermon, we need to understand that we need to be trained in discernment.
We need to be trained in how to spot those who say that they speak on behalf of God, but really they do not speak on behalf of God, but are in fact serving the evil one. So we need to come to grips that many will be deceived.
This is just the reality of it, and Peter says this in the beginning of verse 2. He says many will follow their sensuality. Okay, not a couple, not a few, not several, many. Many will follow their sensuality.
Now we might think that when a false teacher comes on the scene, everyone will easily be able to spot it, and then avoid the person. But sadly, many are deceived by false teachers. You will notice this word once again, many.
Many will follow their sensuality. In Greek, this word translated sensuality means unbridled lust. According to the dictionary, sensuality means the condition of being pleasing or fulfilling to the senses.
False teachers have lifestyles that people follow, and they also entice people with their message. The sin that they give approval to and the words that they say are attractive. They promise big, but never deliver.
Look at a guy that everybody in this room probably has heard of, Joel Osteen, for example. Joel Osteen is a false teacher. He doesn't preach on sin, judgment, and hell. He tells his listeners how wonderful their life will be if they follow God.
He preaches what is called a health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, which is a false gospel. But Joel Osteen packs the house every single Sunday. It's interesting that the place where they meet, it's the place where the Rockets used to play in the NBA.
It was called the Compact Center. It might still be called the Compact Center, I'm not sure, but he fills that place to the rafters every single week. So you may think, well, nobody's going to fall for that.
Yes, they do. Now what I just mentioned is that false teachers promise big, but never deliver. It has been said that the only people that benefit from the prosperity gospel are the prosperity teachers.
They are multi-millionaires. They have massive houses. They drive nice cars, and they even have private jets. The people listening to them want what they have. They are enticed by their actions and their words.
People in their sinful desires see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear, and they are deceived. And the Apostle Paul said it would be this way. In 2 Timothy 4, verses 3 and 4, the Apostle Paul wrote, For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
I already talked about the prosperity movement. What we need to understand is that this environment of tickling people's ears abounds in America. And it's not just in a movement like the prosperity movement.
It's even in movements that might even have more credibility. In 1975, a movement started in Chicago known as the Seeker Sensitive Movement. And it started with a church known as Willow Creek. I one time went to a Willow Creek service back in college, which is interesting.
One site described the start to ministry in this way. Bill Hybels began his journey in the Christian ministry in the 1970s. His innovative approach to church services, focusing on contemporary worship and pragmatic sermons, led to the establishment of Willow Creek Community Church.
So this whole movement started with the goal to get as many people in the door as possible. In order to figure out how to achieve this business strategy, business strategists were consulted. One of my trusted friends informed me that the business strategists weren't even believers.
These business consultants would tell them, if you do this, then you're going to get lots of people in the door. What is this marketing strategy? What is this innovative approach to worship services? It is creating a place that appeals to the senses.
Making church what it has never been. It is a church with a coffee shop, a rock band, a slick 25-minute sermon, if you want to call it a sermon, where a few verses are thrown in, but mainly it's stories, because digging into the Bible will lose people's attention.
What they say is these sermons are relevant. They meet felt needs. They have programs galore, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but once again, the whole goal is let's get as many people in the door as possible.
Let's give people what they want. The goal is not only to get people in the door, but to keep them coming. In business, I remember I took a business class, actually lots of business classes in college, it's called the Law of Diminishing Return.
If you don't keep up what got people in the door in the first place, then you will lose them, so you have to keep it up. At the very beginning, this was a compromise effort to reach people for Christ.
It is a compromise not only because they give people what they want, but they don't give people what they need. They don't tell the whole story about what the Christian life is all about. The Gospel messages are soft.
They don't enter controversy, even though Scripture addresses every controversy. These movements give people what they want to hear. This movement that gives people what they want to hear, in order to get as many people in the door as possible, it started in 1975.
But this is not what church is supposed to be. A church is supposed to preach the whole counsel of God, as we saw in the call to worship in Acts 20, verse 27. We aren't supposed to entice people to give people what they want, we give people what they need.
They need Christ. If we were to ask the question, what is it that every single person, 8 billion people on planet earth need? The answer is, every person needs Christ. And you need to hear that if you're here today and you're wondering, what's my purpose in life?
You need Christ. Think about what you find in Christ. You find joy, fullness of joy. You find security. You find peace. You find belonging. You find happiness. You find your best friend, who's also your God, and your Savior, and your Lord.
That's what people need. And so we tell them what they need. They need to understand how to enter a relationship with Christ, which is only through the cross. Jesus went to the cross. He paid the penalty for your sins.
He rose gloriously from the dead. And by believing in Him, you have entered into a relationship with God. You no longer will face judgment for your sins, but you enter into a relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
People need the totality of the Word of God, and everything that it teaches. This is what Jesus told His disciples before He went to Heaven, before He ascended to Heaven. He told them, tell the world everything that I have told you.
That's what He told them. And that's what we need to do. And the Bible says many things that people don't want to hear, but they need to hear. And this is where we need to understand, what is the definition of love?
Love is not letting people do whatever they want. Think about if you're a parent. If you just let your kids eat whatever they want, drink whatever they want, there's no limits, chocolate, soda, just keep filling yourself up with it, they're going to have rotten teeth, they're going to be unhealthy, they're not going to have a balanced diet.
A loving parent gives children what they need. A healthy, balanced diet. You can have some chocolate, but it's going to be in moderation. This is what healthy parents do. And so what we do as Christians, if you know Christ here today, what we do is we tell people what they need to hear, because we love them.
We need to do this. At Eureka Baptist, we want to be a hospitable place. And we hope you experience that when you come. But we're not going to become like the world in order to win people in the world.
We need to shine the light of Christ through the Word of God and through reflecting Christ. And when this happens, you truly win people to Christ. True conversions take place and true transformation takes place.
Right before the Apostle Paul told Timothy that the time was coming when people are not going to endure a sound teaching, but they're going to hear what they want to hear. This is what he told Timothy.
Preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. Think about the preaching of the Word of God. It happens no matter what environment someone is in.
Sometimes it might be popular. Sometimes everyone might hate you. But it still needs to be done. There are those teachers in this world who truly preach the Word. And sadly, there are those who accumulate for themselves listeners through enticing their sinful desires.
So the goal of a church is not to get as many people in the door as possible. The goal of the church is to be healthy, honoring to God, not a giant circus. And some of these places are that, frankly. It's supposed to be healthy where we're growing in Christ.
As the end of 2 Peter says, at the very end of chapter 3, it says, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That is what a church is all about. And we do this together. We need each other.
We can't do this on our own. We grow together. But there are those teachers in this world who do not do this. They draw people not to Christ, not to faith in Christ, not to growth in Christ, but they draw them after themselves.
It's all about them. And that's what Paul told the Ephesian elders in Acts 20. They will draw people after themselves, making themselves look like they are a representative from God. And Jesus said it would be this way, that many would follow these types of people.
He says, enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many. There's lots of people who are looking to follow a teacher who's only going to tell them what they want to hear.
Because the road is wide, but the way is narrow that leads to life. Many follow corrupt teachers, and we see this in our country and in our world. Prepare to face the grim reality of false teachers. And the fourth practice how is through coming to grips that many will be deceived by them.
The fifth practice how you're supposed to come to grips about this sobering reality is facing the frustration that clear teaching will be muddied by false. Facing the frustration that clear teaching will be muddied by false.
Peter says this in the second half of verse 2. Because of them, these false teachers, the way of truth will be blasphemed. It's blasphemed because of them, Peter says. And once again, what we saw in verse 1 is that false teachers will bring in destructive heresies.
Sometimes you hear the word orthodoxy. What orthodoxy means is that the truth of God's word is being upheld. Heterodoxy, on the other hand, is something that God never said, which is being spoken by a false teacher.
And what Peter writes is that the way of truth will be blasphemed. To blaspheme means to speak evil of. This is what these false teachers do to the truth and to God. They dishonor God and hurt others by speaking what He did not speak and making strong assertions which God considers abhorrent.
And this abounds today. Peter writes the way of truth will be blasphemed and it is blasphemed in our day. Last week I mentioned the Christian Enneagram. I list several modern heresies that present themselves as Christian but are far from Christianity.
And one of those is the Christian Enneagram. And it's an oxymoron. The Enneagram is not Christian, so we shouldn't put them together. So what does the Christian Enneagram teach? It is New Age teachings repackaged.
What they say is they want you to find your inner self. What they teach is that you have a personality and you need to find out what that personality is. You need to tap into it. You've been told you're bad, but you're really good.
You have so much good inside of you. You need to find your inner self. You need to stop listening to those people who tell you that you are bad inside and you need to find your inner self so that you can maximize your potential.
What they say is this faulty behavior that you obviously have in your life and that people notice, that shouldn't be dismissed. What is under this behavior should be understood because through that is the road to something good.
It is the road where you will find your potential. You will find who you were always supposed to be at the maximum level. This is the Enneagram and this is New Age teaching. This is not Christianity, but people can make the Bible say whatever they want.
What does the Bible say about mankind? The opposite of what we just heard. We must hear the bad news before we can understand the good news. Why did Jesus go to the cross? He went to the cross because we come into this world as enemies of God.
We come in as sinners in need of a savior. Jeremiah 17 .9 says, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? If we are left to ourselves, we will go down a horrible path.
Romans 3 .9 -18 gives this long description of what humanity is really like. And what it says is, None is righteous, no, not one. Ephesians 2 .1 -3 says, You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our sinful desires, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
This is what the Bible says. This is humanity before one comes to faith in Christ. It is dark. And this is why the good news is so great. Jesus came to rescue us from this helpless state. As Ephesians 2 .4 -5 says, God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you have been saved. The bad news is really that bad. And the good news is really that good. And this is why it's frustrating when some preachers don't focus on the bad of humanity. If we won't focus on the state of humanity before Christ, we don't understand the Gospel.
That Jesus came on a rescue mission to save sinners. Why did He need to come on a rescue mission? Because in one sinful state, you are under the judgment of God. And you need to be rescued from that. Because a good judge will judge those who are guilty.
There is such a focus in our world saying that humanity is inherently good. It is true that we are the pinnacle of God's creation. Of everything that is in creation, we are the only ones created in the image of God.
But the beauty of God's image-bearers needs to be restored. And it's only restored through salvation in Christ and the transformation that comes from following Him. It's only under these circumstances that this can take place.
The Bible is very clear as to what humanity is supposed to do. The Bible is not complicated. It's made complicated by deceitful teachers who love to muddy the clear waters. You ever go down to a clear lake and you throw mud into it?
Kids do that, right? And you love to see the bottom of the lake. What false teachers do is they muddy that. They love to say what Satan said in the garden in Genesis 3 -1. Did God really say that? What he says is you're not inherently sinful.
God didn't say that. You're good. You just need to find your potential. You can see how Satan deceives people. There was an old gospel tract that wasn't a good gospel tract. The four spiritual laws. I might ruffle some feathers by saying that, but I'm going to say it.
God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. That's where they start. Of course God loves me. Everybody loves me. I'm a great person. You can see how that would come off. We need to say, no, you are God's image bearer.
He wants to redeem you. But this is where you are right now. And you need to be redeemed by the blood of Christ. We've seen Satan's deceit in the homosexual revolution, where there are professors, even some who teach at evangelical institutions, who are saying that God didn't condemn homosexuality.
Even though the Bible clearly says that it is a grievous sin and those who practice it will not enter the kingdom of God. There's a list of sins that the Bible gives. And any sin separates us from God.
But homosexuality is a sin that needs to be turned from. And we love people by telling them that. If someone who has those desires comes to our church, we're so glad that they are here. But we want to love them enough by saying, you need Christ.
You can turn from this. You can be free. There's a Christian man whom I know named Marv Munyon. Marv wrote the private and homeschool legislation that was passed into law in Wisconsin about 30 to 40 years ago.
And this law is so good that it has been a model for other states. He once debated a New Testament scholar, I put scholar in quotation marks, on the radio who said this very thing about homosexuality.
He said, the Bible doesn't teach that homosexuality is wrong. And Marv's response was outstanding to this false teacher. He said, your education is above your intelligence. I thought that was really well said.
Your education is above your intelligence. This guy has lots of letters after his name. But when you really look at it, this is dumb. This is not intelligence. This is not wisdom. Not even close. But it comes across that way.
It has the guise of it. Oh, this guy is really smart. And really, it's foolishness. False teachers love to muddy the clear waters. They love to think outside the box when the answers are inside the box.
They love to find their own way of blessing when God's way of blessing has been clearly outlined. False teachers love to poison the well in order to lead people away from Christ and to themselves. And they will do this by saying enough truth in order to deceive people.
And what they say will sound Christian, but in reality, what they teach blasphemes God and leads people away from Christ, not to Him. It leads people away from blessing and to curse. So we must understand this about false teachers.
Prepare to face the grim reality of false teachers. And the fifth practice, how? Is by facing the frustration that clear teaching will be muddied by false. And here's the sixth practice, how? You are to prepare to face the grim reality of false teachers.
And that is by recognizing their impure motives. And we'll see this in the beginning of verse 3, where Peter writes, In their greed they will exploit you with false words. What we have to understand about false teachers is that they are not in the ministry for the right reasons.
You probably have gathered that to this point. Why is it that a man goes in the ministry? A man is called to be a shepherd, to preach and teach the truth of God's word and to shepherd God's people. It is to lead God's people to green pastures.
Good shepherds will be used by God to lead people to heaven. That's the purpose of a minister. People will be presented mature in Christ when they stand before God one day. But false teachers aren't in the ministry for these reasons.
Remember Peter warned us of this in 1 Peter. In 1 Peter 5, verses 2 and 3, he explained what a true shepherd is supposed to look like and what a false shepherd looks like. There he wrote that they are in it for shameful gain and they are domineering over other people.
And you can see the contrast here. A true shepherd is an example to the flock of God. A false shepherd harms the flock. They're in it for their own shameful gain. As Peter writes in the first half of verse 3 in our text, they are greedy.
When we hear the word greedy, we automatically think of money. This person wants more money. This person wants more stuff. What Peter's getting after here is they're never satisfied and always want more.
And this is true. This is what it means to be greedy. When false teachers are greedy, they want to feed their egos. They want to feed their selfish ambition. They have an agenda. They're not in the ministry to bless people, but are there because of some ulterior motives.
It may be to stroke one's ego. It may be to advance one's career. It may be to have control. It may be to enrich oneself. I mentioned Joel Osteen. He made a nice career choice as far as finances go. And let me say this as a pastor.
In some places, the reputation of pastoral ministry has become where a pastor doesn't work very much, but he makes a high salary. Mark and I have this joke that I only work one day a week. He still believes that seven years in.
But it is true that some pastors, they get paid six digits, and then you only see them one day a week. It's true. That does happen. And it's really sad because it shouldn't be that way. It's not supposed to be a cushy job, but some make it that way.
And some churches even let him get away with it. If I do that, don't let me get away with it. To get what they want, Peter writes in the first half of verse 3 that they will exploit you with false words.
Another way to say this is that they manipulate you. People know how to talk to get what they want. People know how to appeal to one's emotions, to advance an agenda, and in some way to gain something personally.
These false teachers are out there in churches and Christian institutions, and Scripture warns of them. These teachers that Peter is describing do two things. They give away that they are frauds. Number one, what they teach is false.
And secondly, they have poor character. They teach what is false, and they have poor character. Now sometimes you might see someone who is a false teacher, but they actually teach what is right, but their character is not consistent with what a Christian is supposed to be.
That does happen. But I think more times than not, the person teaches what is false and has poor character. And I've already explained this in previous points that what they teach sounds like Christianity, but what they do is they twist the Scriptures.
This is what they do. And as I mentioned earlier, we need to be trained to spot them. Hebrews 5 .14 talks about being trained to be able to recognize good from evil. And we need that in our world so desperately.
Can we recognize what is good and what is evil? Because Satan comes as an agent of light. He's able to deceive people. We need to be able to spot these things from a mile away. As we grow in discernment, you will be able to do that more and more.
So prepare to face the grim reality of false teachers. And the sixth practice how is by recognizing their impure motives. They're not in it for the right reasons. And here's our final point today. The seventh practice how you are to prepare to face the grim reality of false teachers, and that's by taking comfort in knowing that the Lord will deal with them.
Second half of verse 3, Peter writes,. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. As we read about these people, we should get really angry. And it's appropriate to get angry with self-control.
Sometimes we can get angry and we'll take a big stick and we'll hit a tree outside because we're so angry. We don't want to do that. We want to have self-control, but there is a such thing, a biblical category as righteous anger.
And we need to understand their future. That will help your anger because their future is not bright. They won't get away with any of their evil actions. What Peter does here is he gives us this picture of judgment not sleeping on them.
As one author writes,. With the words destruction is not asleep, Peter personifies eternal damnation as if it were an executioner who remains fully awake, ready to administer God's just sentence of condemnation on those who falsify his word.
They are going to stand before Christ one day, the chief shepherd and the final judge. And as I mentioned one week ago, the judgment they will receive will be severe. These words by Peter ought to make false teachers tremble.
Once again, he writes,. The condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. And we get this picture here of God waiting to judge them. It's not as if their evil actions are forgotten and they're never going to be dealt with.
No, judgment awaits as God is awaiting to administer this justice and the more evil they do, the greater judgment awaits. So when you think about it that way, they're not getting away with anything. In fact, they're only hurting themselves more and more as they continue in their falsehood.
In point 3, I somewhat highlighted this, and that point said that they will be judged by one, Jesus Christ, whom they reject. As the end of verse 2 once again says, they are bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
God is waiting. Judgment is coming. And we need to hear this. We need to hear this because we can think they're going to get away with it, can't we? And this doesn't just go for false teachers. It goes for any grave injustice that's out there.
There's lots of injustices that happen where someone gets away with it, where justice doesn't come. And if there is no God, then there is no justice. You must understand that. If we were all atheists, then we don't believe in justice because there must be God for there to be justice.
And He will right every single wrong. Romans 12 .19 says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. We should watch out for false teachers and we should call them out when we discover they are workers of Satan and not the Lord.
But we must also know our limits in dealing with them. We need to understand that the Lord will do right. And none of the evil that they have pushed forward will they ever get away with. So let's summarize what we've seen in this two Sunday sermon.
Prepare to face the grim reality of false teachers. And we've seen seven practices how over the last two Sundays. And I'm going to run through these as we close. We need to realize that false teachers have always been inside the church.
We need to know that they twist the Scriptures. We need to understand that they will be destroyed by the one they reject. We need to come to grips that many will be deceived by them. We need to face the frustration that clear teaching will be muddied by false.
We need to recognize their impure motives. And lastly, as we have just seen, we need to take comfort in knowing that the Lord will deal with them. It is sad that these evil actors are within the church, but Scripture warns us that they are there.
They were there in the Old Testament times. They were there during the New Testament times. They have been there all through church history and in 2021 America. They are here. And we need to be able to spot them.
And Peter tells us how we can spot them. And may we do that by God's grace. And as we spot them, may we follow the true shepherd, the chief shepherd, Jesus Christ, whose intention, his goal, his plan is to lead us to green pastures.
Can I hear an amen? Now next Sunday, we're going to take a break from 2 Peter because we have something big coming up. In 13 days, our conference is coming up. The TruthScript Be Not Conformed Conference.
We have people, remarkably, we have people from 10 different states who are going to be represented at this conference. I was looking at the directory of people who are coming. And it's going to be a big weekend here at Eureka Baptist Church.
And I thought it would be a good move as we kick off that week to preach a sermon. It will be the first message of the conference. Because I'm not speaking at the conference. I know my face is on the cover.
I'm not speaking at the conference. I might be the first conference speaker ever to get his face on the cover who actually isn't speaking. So I'm going to be speaking the Sunday before the conference.
And there I will preach on pursuing, actually this is next Sunday, pursuing faithfulness in the age of opposition. So that will be next Sunday. And at this time, let's close in prayer. Father in Heaven, what a wonderful God You are.
We give You praise. We give You thanks. Lord, my prayer is that everyone in this room would understand their sin, would understand that they need Christ, would understand the freedom that is in Jesus Christ.
In Him and in Him alone is true, lasting freedom. As Jesus said, the truth will set you free and you will be free indeed. And Lord, it's a sad reality that there are teachers out there who don't bring people toward freedom, but they bring people toward slavery.
And we need to be able to spot these teachers as we follow You. So give us the strength, give us the wisdom to be able to carry this out. In Jesus' name, Amen.