WWUTT 1527 Beware of False Prophets (Part 2)

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. And greetings, everyone. My apologies for missing the podcast for the last week.

Some of you probably have heard what happened, though. I forgot my laptop. It's the first time

I've ever done anything like that. But all the plans that I had for the podcast the week

I was at G3 in Atlanta, well, all of that went out the window. It was a great conference. We'll talk more about that later on in the week.

To get things back on track, I still have to air part two of the message that started on Monday last week.

So that's what you're going to hear today. The sermon that I did preaching through 2 Peter 2 at the beginning of September.

We're going to pick up where that message left off. And then tomorrow, 1 Corinthians 7,

Thursday will be in Proverbs, and Friday, God willing, Becky will be joining me for a Q &A.

Okay, to recap where I left off in this sermon on 2 Peter, I had been going through examples of heretical doctrines and then giving examples of false teachers that teach those heresies.

I only gave one example of a false teacher, one who denied that Jesus Christ is

God incarnate. So that was the first example that I gave, false teachers that denied that Jesus was

God incarnate. So here we go with the second example, which is those who deny that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

Here's part two of that message in 2 Peter 2. How about denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus?

Who does that? Martin Luther King Jr. denied that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

In fact, he preached that Jesus' death on the cross was not even necessary. And he preached this in a sermon on Easter Sunday, 1959, at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

What a time to preach a sermon like that, that you don't need to believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that he died on the cross.

N .T. Wright, a very popular theologian, former Bishop of Durham, affirms Christ's resurrection, but he has taught you don't need to believe it in order to be a

Christian. He said, I have friends who I am quite sure are

Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection. Friends, that's heresy. They're not

Christians. As we heard from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, their faith is in vain.

It's just for themselves. It's not to honor and glorify God, and they're still dead in their sins.

Who denies that they're a sinner in need of repentance? Todd White, a very popular faith healer and pastor of Lifestyle Christianity Church in Fort Worth, Texas, he has claimed to achieve sinless perfection.

Some among the Methodist denominations, including the Wesleyans and Nazarenes, teach a doctrine of entire sanctification, that it's possible for you to achieve sinless perfection on this side of heaven.

I was reminded this week of a story about Charles Spurgeon, who encountered a man who claimed to have achieved sinless perfection, and Spurgeon said, well,

I've got to see this for myself. So we invited the man to dinner and said, tell me how you achieve this sinless perfection.

The man sat at dinner and just went on and on boasting in himself about how he was now sinless and did not sin ever.

And in the middle of his rattling on, Spurgeon grabbed a glass of water and threw it in his face.

The man jumped up, surprised, and he wipes the water from his face and he started angrily shouting at Spurgeon and started calling him names that no

Christian should ever call another brother in Christ. And Spurgeon said, see there, look, that sinful man in you was not dead.

He had merely fainted and needed to be revived with a glass of water to the face. Beware of teachers who will tell you certain things are not sin when

God has said that they are. There is a growing number of Christian teachers saying that same -sex attraction is not a sin.

When Colossians 3, 5 says even the desire for sexual immorality is subject to the wrath of God.

They will say homosexuality is not a sin. They will refuse to call abortion sin because they don't want to offend anyone.

There are teachers who will seldom talk about sin at all. They certainly won't talk about the wrath of God or the reality of an eternal hell.

They are like passive heretics. It's what they won't say that makes their teaching wicked and the people following them are permitted to continue in whatever wicked deeds they want, denying that they are sinners in need of a

Savior. If you don't understand that you are a sinner, then what do you need a

Savior for? If you call Christ Savior, what has he saved you from?

He saved us from our sins. He saved us from death. He saves us from the wrath of God that is burning against all the unrighteousness of men.

We've looked at just a few essential doctrines here and examples of those who deny them.

Peter said there are false prophets who arose among the people just as there will also be false teachers among you, secretly introducing destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

And many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be maligned.

They love the things that the false teachers promise, so that's why they go after these false teachers.

I want to have those things in my flesh, and here's a teacher telling me that I can have them.

And so they revealed that they would rather have the stuff of this world than the promises of the kingdom of God.

Peter says in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep.

Consider the examples that Peter follows that with, talking about those who indeed have come to destruction and that God has also delivered the faithful from the error of their lawless ways.

Look at verse 4 in 2 Peter chapter 2. For if God did not spare angels who sinned, but cast them into the pit and delivered them to chains of darkness being kept for judgment.

And he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.

And if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter.

And if he rescued righteous lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men, for by what he saw and heard that righteous man while living among them felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds.

Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.

And especially those who go after the flesh in its corrupt lust and despise authority.

So what we've read here, verses 4 through 10, about midway through verse 10, we see examples of those false teachers throughout biblical history that came to destruction because of their error, their error because of their lawless ways.

But who did God save? Those who loved righteousness.

Those who desired and had the righteousness of God. Lot himself was tormented day after day by the lawless deeds that are going on around him.

And my friends, is that where you sit in this world? That you see the

Sodom and Gomorrah that is happening around us, even in lawless America, and you are tormented in your soul by the acts of lawless people.

Longing for a perfect kingdom that has been promised us in Christ Jesus to all those who believe on his name.

May that be our greatest yearning and desire. And we have this promise from this section.

Those who deny Christ will go to destruction. Those who love Christ to eternal life with him.

He will deliver us from the judgment that is coming against the unrighteous.

Let's continue on. Midway through verse 10, we have this description of these false teachers even within our midst in the present.

They are daring. Some of your translations say bold. They are self -willed, right?

They follow their own desires, not the word of God. Their own words, their own minds, not desiring to have the mind of Christ.

They do not tremble when they blaspheme the glorious ones. Whereas angels who are greater in strength and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the

Lord. Jude talks about this also in his letter. In fact, there's a lot of similarities between Jude and 2

Peter chapter 2. Jude will say that Michael the archangel, when he was contending with Satan over the body of Moses, he did not issue a rebuke against Satan, but he,

Michael, who has more power than the devil does. He said, the Lord rebuke you.

And Peter says that there are false teachers out there who will claim that they have greater power over the devil and the demons.

They blaspheme the glorious ones. You will hear many false teachers out there who will say, bind it in the name of Jesus, right?

Satan, I bind you in the name of Jesus. Not even angels would do that. And I just have this question.

If there are so many word of faith heretics out there that are binding Satan in Jesus name, who keeps letting him out?

Look at verse 12. But these like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, blaspheming where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering unrighteousness as the wages of their unrighteousness, considering it a pleasure to revel in the daytime.

They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions as they feast with you.

Having eyes full of adultery and unceasing sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, they are accursed children.

Hearts trained in greed, they exploit you with false words. They use you to benefit themselves.

These are the ways of these false teachers. Let's continue on. Verse 15, forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.

But he received a rebuke for his own lawlessness for a mute donkey, speaking out with the voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.

A mute donkey rebuked him. What did Peter previously say about these false teachers?

Verse 12, these are like unreasoning animals. They're like creatures of instinct. And God gave reason to an animal to rebuke a false teacher,

Balaam, who was going to issue curses against Israel for money. Now, these false teachers are even human beings made in the image of God.

But as it says in Romans 3, 12, they have become worthless. It's because of their sin and their error in the false teaching that they believe and therefore also preach that they have made themselves worthless.

And all of us were the same. All of us were at one point walking in error and had become worthless.

It is by faith in Jesus Christ that we are made worthy. Worthy to have fellowship with God.

Worthy to worship him in a right way and call upon his name. Christ makes us worthy.

These false teachers make you worthless. Picking up in verse 17, these are springs without water and mist driven by a storm for whom the black darkness has been kept.

Can you go to a spring that has no water in it? Jude also refers to these false teachers as waterless clouds.

Can you have a waterless cloud? It's a contradiction, right? And so are these false teachers.

You can't have a waterless spring. But you go to that spring that the false teacher offers you, expecting to get refreshed from it and you get nothing.

In fact, there's a good way to test whether a teacher is giving you a motivational speech or if they're actually presenting to you something that God said according to his word.

If you can listen to that sermon and you can take the Bible completely out of it and still get the same message at the end, that's a worldly message, not a message from the word of God.

They offer you things, but their offerings are empty. You have the health and wealth preachers who offer you health and prosperity, but only they get it and you're left with nothing.

You have the social gospel teachers who are proclaiming that we can make society better and people will be better.

What does the scripture say? God has subjected all things to futility. And as Paul told

Timothy, men will go on being deceived and deceiving, falling further and further into their error.

Waterless springs promise things that they cannot give. Verse 18, they speak arrogant words of vanity.

They entice by sensual lusts of the flesh those who are barely escaping from the ones who conducted themselves in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption.

For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. For if they are overcome, having both escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and having again been entangled in them, then the last state has become worse for them than the first.

For it would be better for them to have not known the way of righteousness than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment, hand it on to them.

The message of the true proverb has happened to them. A dog returns to its own vomit and a sow after washing returns to wallow in the mire.

What did Jesus say in Matthew 7, 6? Do not give to dogs what is holy. Do not cast your pearls before swine.

The dogs and the pigs. That's exactly who these false teachers are. My friend, there are a lot of false teachings in the world.

Paganism, Gnosticism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shamanism, even

Judaism. Polytheism, Pantheism, Deism, Darwinism, Naturalism, Secular Humanism, Feminism, Agnosticism, Atheism, and Islamism.

All of these are different ways to get to God or be a God or deny God. But Jesus said,

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father but by me.

John 14, 6. Of course, not everything that claims to be of Christ is truly of Christ.

Like Catholicism, Mormonism, Unitarian Universalism, Oneness Pentecostalism, Heaven Tourism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Eastern Orthodoxy, Word of Faith, the

New Apostolic Reformation, and Rob Bell. So why all these false religions and teachers?

Why would God allow there to be so many, many lies? Two reasons.

Testing and judgment. Why does God allow there to be false teachers in the world?

To test you. Or, if you do not pass the test, to judge you.

Consider these words that the Lord said to Israel in Deuteronomy 13, verses 1 -3. If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and he says, let us go after other gods, you shall not listen to that false prophet.

For the Lord your God is testing you to see whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The Bible says of those who refuse to love the truth and so be saved, this is 2

Thessalonians 2 -11, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Testing and judgment. When it comes down to it, there are only two religions in the world.

You either worship the created or you worship the creator. And the creator is our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But there's a third reason why there are so many false teachers in the world.

It's because God said there would be. Turn back with me to Matthew chapter 7 and let's finish with the words that Pastor Tom read to us last week.

Matthew chapter 7, beginning in verse 15. Matthew 7, beginning in verse 15.

Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

Even so, every good tree bears good fruit but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

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. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of my

Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, in your name did we not prophesy?

And in your name cast out demons and in your name do many mighty miracles. And then

I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

Will you go the way of these false teachers and those will be the words that you hear of Christ on that day?

Or will you go the way of Christ and hear from him, well done, good and faithful servant?

Now great is your reward. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, I consider this morning as we bring this to a close the final words that Peter shared with his readers, his hearers in 2

Peter chapter 3. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard lest you, having been carried away by the error of unprincipled men, fall from your own steadfastness.

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

And all God's people said, Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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