Watch Out for Wolves Part I 2 Peter 2:1-3

Eureka Baptist Church

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April 14, 2024

00:15: One troubling aspect of life is facing the reality that we cannot always trust people.
00:25: Wise parents have the conversation with their children to stay away from strangers. Some of you parents have done that to your kids recently.
00:33: I remember when I was younger my parents did that to me. They'll offer you candy. You can't trust everyone.
00:40: There are certain people who give off a nice appearance, but only mean harm.
00:47: This is the world we live in, and we need to face this reality. There are many people on this earth who do everything for their own benefit, without considering the needs of others.
01:00: Some aren't a major harm to others, but they're just selfish. The people in this person's life know this to be true.
01:09: Some will not inconvenience themselves to serve others. But then there are those who in their selfishness are a legitimate danger to others.
01:19: This danger can be manifested in different ways. Some are dangerous in that they will physically harm others.
01:26: Still others are dangerous in that they have no problem manipulating others in order to get what they want.
01:33: These dangerous people are across all spheres of life, whether in government, media, academia, businesses, or personal life.
01:44: Whatever sphere people are in, these dangerous people will be found. Sometimes these people are difficult to find, but over time they often reveal themselves.
01:57: And they reveal themselves especially to those who are discerning. These problematic people are sadly found in the last place they should be found, in churches and Christian institutions.
02:12: Scripture warns of them. They are goats that present themselves as sheep.
02:19: They are wolves that present themselves as shepherds. But really they are only in a church or Christian institution to cause harm.
02:30: These men and women are here in our day. But it isn't unique to our day.
02:38: The presence of wolves disguising themselves as shepherds has always been a problem, as their presence has always been among the people of God.
02:47: This morning as we continue our sermon series through 2 Peter, the Apostle Peter communicates this to his readers and to us.
02:55: These people are out there to advance their own agenda and to prey on the flock of God.
03:02: And we are to keep our eyes out for them and guard against them. So at this time I encourage you to turn in the
03:08: Bible with me to 2 Peter. We'll be looking at verses 1 through 3. And if you don't have a
03:14: Bible, we have a red Bible in the pews. The sermon is titled, Watch Out for Wolves.
03:19: And this is part 1. And earlier in the service I mentioned we'll be looking at verse 1. And then next
03:25: Sunday we'll look at verses 2 and 3. And I'm going to begin by reading these three verses.
03:32: 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.
03:53: And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
03:59: 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.
04:11: Here's our big idea, what this text, what this sermon is calling you to do. Every sermon is calling you to do something.
04:19: Here's what it is. Prepare yourself to face the grim reality of false teachers.
04:26: Prepare yourself to face the grim reality of false teachers. And we're going to see seven practices how over the next two
04:33: Sundays. Now the last time we were in 2 Peter on March 17th, on that Sunday we looked at the end of chapter 1, where the apostle
04:42: Peter described the glory of the doctrine of scripture. What we saw is that Peter explained the transfiguration event where the writers of scripture of both
04:53: Old and New Testaments stood alongside the one to whom the Old and New Testaments are focused on, and that is the
05:01: Messiah Jesus Christ. As Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John stood on that mountain,
05:09: Jesus was transfigured before them. What they saw is that Jesus was no mere man, but he is the
05:16: God -man. The Old Testament writers wrote that he was coming, and the New Testament explained the grand significance of his life in ministry.
05:25: What Peter explained is that as these men wrote concerning Christ and all the truth of God, their words were not the words of men, but truly the word of God.
05:36: Because as they wrote, their words were inspired by the Holy Spirit. So when we hold this
05:43: Bible in our hands, we are holding the inspired and inerrant word of God.
05:50: Now this leads us to our text this morning that I've already introduced and read, but now we're going to zero in on.
05:56: Let's begin by looking at the beginning of verse 1, where once again Peter writes, What Peter's doing here is he's pointing back to history.
06:14: He says that false prophets arose among the people, and then he says that they're going to be among you too.
06:22: Sometimes we may wonder if there's a difference between a false prophet and a false teacher. This verse tells us there is no difference.
06:29: A false prophet is a false teacher. A false teacher is a false prophet. Deuteronomy 18 .22
06:38: describes a false prophet. That verse says, When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the
06:49: Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
06:57: In the Old Testament, prophets had two tasks. To foretell and to forth tell.
07:06: Foretell and to forth tell. To foretell means that they predicted the future.
07:14: The Lord told them something that was going to happen in the future, and the prophet said this is going to happen.
07:21: To forth tell was to proclaim what the Lord had already spoken, but the people needed to hear afresh.
07:31: What Deuteronomy 18 .22 is describing is a prophet who said he spoke on behalf of the
07:37: Lord, but he really didn't. So this is a false prophet. This person would take the liberty to speak and then say the
07:46: Lord bless the word that he was speaking. What would happen in the cases where this prophet made a prediction concerning what the
07:56: Lord was going to accomplish, what he spoke didn't come to pass. The Old Testament is full of examples of those who falsely spoke on behalf of the
08:08: Lord. And let me give you a sampling of false prophets in the Old Testament. In the book of Jeremiah, several false prophets are listed.
08:17: Ahab, Pasher, Hananiah, Zedekiah, Shemaiah, and then the prophets of Baal are listed as well.
08:28: In 1 Kings, Zedekiah is listed along with 400 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah.
08:37: So they were flooded with false prophets in the Old Testament. There were lots of false prophets in the
08:45: Old Testament and some of them are even mentioned by name. There is not a time in history since the fall in the
08:56: Garden of Eden where there haven't been false prophets somewhere. Where these men and women say they speak on behalf of the
09:04: Lord or speak on behalf of a false god. So some say they are from the
09:10: Lord and they are not and others say they speak on behalf of another god.
09:17: So some say, yeah, I'm with you. I'm speaking on behalf of the
09:22: Lord. And then others believe it's some pagan god. So either way, these are false prophets.
09:33: There's an interesting account in 1 Kings 22 where the king of Israel and the king of Judah are deciding whether or not to go to war against Syria to take control of the region known as Ramoth -Gilead.
09:47: To figure out whether or not they will be successful, King Ahab, a wicked king, the king of Israel.
09:54: By the way, every king of the northern kingdom was wicked, just about. Ahab asked 400 prophets what they should do.
10:05: These 400 prophets told them that they should go out to battle because the Lord is with them and the
10:10: Lord will be victorious for them and they will get Ramoth -Gilead.
10:17: But then Jehoshaphat, a wiser king, the king of Judah, told
10:23: King Ahab, there is another prophet you haven't consulted and his name is
10:30: Micaiah. King Ahab confessed to Jehoshaphat he hates this prophet.
10:37: Micaiah never tells him what he wants to hear. But King Ahab reluctantly asked
10:47: Micaiah and Micaiah gave, guess what, the opposite answer that the other prophets, 400 prophets said to him.
10:57: But guess what? Ahab didn't listen. And he sends his troops out to battle and they get humiliated.
11:05: Micaiah was right, again. So what we see in this illustration is something very characteristic of false prophets.
11:14: They tell people what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.
11:23: This is what the Apostle Paul describes in 2 Timothy 4, 3 and 4. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching.
11:31: 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.
11:45: False prophets and false teachers, remember this interchangeable term, know what people want to hear and so they give them what they want.
11:56: What King Ahab had in his presence was a multitude of false prophets ready to tell him what he wanted to hear.
12:04: Now in people's pride, they love to say they are speaking on behalf of the
12:09: Lord. But in reality, the Lord isn't behind their words. What Peter is telling his readers and us in the first half of verse 1 is that just as people in the
12:19: Old Testament were surrounded by false prophets and false teachers, so you will be surrounded by them.
12:27: Some are more obvious. Some are more subtle. But they're out there.
12:36: And one of the responsibilities of a shepherd of a local church or shepherds of a local church is to protect the people from false teachers.
12:45: And as long as we are here, it is our aim to do that. And we pray that we remain diligent in protecting the flock from harmful teachings.
12:54: We protect from those who try to bring a foreign teaching into the church.
13:00: And we also warn you about what is out there in the broader church, the broader
13:07: American church. Most heresies, by the way, come out of America. And then they're exported to the rest of the world.
13:14: So we fight for America. And as we fight for America, we fight for the world. Because these heresies make their way out.
13:24: I mean, think about the heresies in our day that call itself Christian, but in reality are a diversion from biblical
13:30: Christianity that teach something other than what this book teaches. In our country, in our world, we have
13:38: Roman Catholicism, which teaches a works -righteousness system of salvation.
13:45: Jehovah Witness religion, once again, teaches a works -righteousness system of salvation.
13:51: Mormonism, same thing. And more recently in our day, three that have taken off are social justice, that our conference in three weeks is really going to be, that's a big focus of the conference.
14:05: The Christian Enneagram, anybody heard of that one? Next Sunday we're going to be talking more about that.
14:11: The Hebrew Roots Movement is another one. All of them are dangerous because all of them distort what the
14:18: Bible really teaches. They all say we have, they put burdens on us that we don't have. They require us to do things that the
14:26: Bible doesn't require us to do. In the case of the Hebrew Roots Movement, my friend
14:32: Carl Johnson, this is very interesting, he's a good mentor of mine, loves the nation of Israel.
14:39: His church, in fact, is a church like ours that loves Israel because we see the grand promises that God has for Israel in the
14:47: Bible. Carl Johnson was actually in the Hebrew Roots Movement at one time. And when it started out, it started out as a healthy movement because it started out as a movement where it was, let's learn about the festivals, let's learn about the feasts, let's learn about the significance of the
15:04: Sabbath. And it was kind of a, you know, our faith comes from the Jews, right?
15:09: Jesus even says that salvation is from the Jews. And it was meant as, these festivals were meant to show us, you know, where is
15:17: Christ pictured in these? This is going to enhance our faith. This isn't something we have to do, but it's interesting to learn.
15:24: We had a Passover at our church about a year or two ago. But then it turned into, similar to the
15:31: Judaizer heresy of the first century, where it's like you have to do these things in order to earn God's favor.
15:38: So there's all these different teachings, even in our day, that actually distort the true gospel. And the ones
15:45: I just listed are examples of them. All of them are dangerous. So we need to listen carefully to Peter's words.
15:52: Just as there were false teachers among the saints of old, so there are false teachers and false teachings among us.
15:59: We should not be naive. Satan is active. He wants to confuse.
16:06: He wants to muddy the clear waters of the gospel. And this is what he does.
16:13: So prepare yourself to face the grim reality of false teachers. And the first practice how is through realizing that false teachers have always been inside the church.
16:24: The second practice how you are to prepare yourself to face the grim reality of false teachers is by knowing that they twist the scriptures.
16:36: Through knowing that they twist the scriptures. As I alluded to in the first point, these teachers don't speak on behalf of the
16:43: Lord. Let's read this in the middle of verse 1. Just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies.
16:54: Let me ask you a question. What does a true teacher of God do?
17:01: A true teacher of God proclaims what the Lord has said.
17:08: In Old Testament times, the prophets were told what the Lord said and then he proclaimed precisely what the
17:15: Lord told him. This is what is called foretelling as I mentioned in the first point. These prophets also proclaimed what had already been spoken.
17:26: That's what we call foretelling. Then in New Testament times, the apostles of Jesus proclaimed what was already written in the
17:32: Old Testament. But they also, like Old Testament prophets, provided new information not found in the
17:40: Old Testament. In this way, they gave new revelation. What I do week after week as I preach is
17:47: I don't give you new information. I don't give you anything that's not in this book.
17:55: What I do is foretell. I don't foretell, I foretell. That's where we are in the history of the world as far as God's work in the world.
18:07: I'm bringing the word of God to bear on our lives afresh and I and any preacher has one job, proclaim what
18:19: God has written. If you want to understand the kind of preaching we do in this church, we read the text, we explain the text, and then we apply the text.
18:29: Those three steps. Read it, explain it, apply it.
18:36: And as we do that, the Holy Spirit is going to use that in our lives as we live our lives and try to live lives that are honoring to Him.
18:45: I'm not up here to share my opinions and to offer worldly wisdom.
18:54: Like I mentioned, you know, is what is going on in the Middle East, is this Gog of Magog happening before our eyes?
19:02: It might be. I'm not going to tell you it is because if I tell you it is, I might be a false prophet because it might be though.
19:08: Okay, we have to be careful what we say. My job is not to share my opinions.
19:14: My job is to preach the Word and to apply it correctly.
19:22: But there are men and women out there who have a high view of their opinions.
19:29: They have a high view of themselves. They want people to know a new teaching. And I mentioned some of these new teachings in the first point.
19:37: We are surrounded by them and we need to guard the truth from them. False teachers love to bring in a new teaching that twists the
19:45: Scriptures just a little bit. One may think, just a little twisting, what harm can that cause?
19:53: Close enough. A while back, Mark shared a helpful illustration in Sunday School.
20:00: And what he explained is that if you have a bucket of clean water and you put a very small amount of poison in that water, in that bucket, what happens is the whole bucket becomes contaminated.
20:17: We saw that in Galatians 5 this morning. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
20:27: If you drink this water, you'll be sick and you might even die. This is what
20:34: Satan does. We have to recognize this. One of the greatest problems of the
20:41: American Evangelical Church is that there is a great lack of discernment.
20:48: The author of Hebrews in Hebrews 5 verses 12 -14 said this concerning discernment. Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you, again, the basic principles of the oracles of God.
21:03: You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
21:11: But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
21:22: So how are you doing? Are you trained to distinguish good from evil?
21:29: We need to be discerning Christians. And this conference we're hosting in three weeks is all about this.
21:37: It's about discernment. It's about understanding the climate we live in. It's about we want to be obedient to the
21:44: Lord Jesus Christ. We want to have a pure Christianity. We want to be honoring to Him.
21:50: We don't want to have a Christianity that is worldly. And we need to be discerning to recognize what is the pure Christianity and what is a worldly Christianity.
22:05: We do this through the power of the Holy Spirit. If you have the Holy Spirit, you can be discerning. We need to know our enemy.
22:15: Enemies are smart. Satan is incredibly smart. They deceive.
22:24: And the way to deceive is making something look like it is genuine, when in reality it's false.
22:33: Think about money. Most of us in the room probably would not be able to recognize counterfeit money from real money.
22:43: But certain people are trained in that. A teller at a bank would be trained in recognizing what is real money, what is false money.
22:53: There is a difference. They look similar, but those who are discerning can tell the difference.
23:03: Satan is a smart enemy. He knows exactly what he's doing. Most false teachers aren't obvious.
23:12: Very important dimension here. Most false teachers are not obvious. They change the truth just a little bit.
23:23: But that little bit makes all the difference. What Peter writes in the middle of verse 1 is that these false teachers bring in these heresies secretly.
23:33: The word heresy means different. What they are bringing in is a different doctrine than what was delivered by the prophets and the apostles.
23:43: They bring in this new teaching with craftiness. And what Peter describes is the damage of these false teachings.
23:50: These heresies, these false teachings that these false teachers bring in, Peter calls them destructive.
24:00: I mentioned that in passing here, but I will focus on that more in the next point. This teaching they bring in is subtle.
24:07: Unless people are paying close attention, they won't notice. What is so deceptive about these crafty teachers is that they come from within.
24:19: Acts 20, verses 29 -31. This is with the apostle Paul. So Paul is with these elders in Ephesus.
24:27: And one of the last things he tells them is this. He says this, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
24:39: And from your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.
24:47: Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one of you with tears.
24:55: So it's not as if someone from the outside comes in, everybody notices the person, it's obvious, and the person teaches something false.
25:08: Now that can happen, that does happen, but more times than not, false teachers come from within.
25:18: They call themselves Christians. They graduate from an evangelical seminary.
25:24: They have no problem signing a statement of faith. And guess what?
25:30: They're nice. They smile. This person looks harmless.
25:39: 2 Corinthians 11, verses 13 -14. Paul wrote this, Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
25:50: And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
26:05: There's lots of naivete out there. They're nice.
26:12: They sign a statement of faith. They graduate from an evangelical seminary. It's all over the place.
26:24: And yet, far too many give people the benefit of the doubt. There is a balance here.
26:31: 1 Corinthians 13 does say, Love believes all things. It doesn't mean be gullible. It just means give people the benefit of the doubt.
26:38: But once the red flags come up, then we no longer be gullible. You actually have to pay attention.
26:45: This person is teaching something different than the gospel. And then we warn people about that person.
26:53: And let me give you an example of this. Tim Keller. I would be thrown out of most churches just saying this.
27:01: He died one year ago. He was celebrated. The number one thing trending on Twitter was,
27:08: Thank you, Tim Keller. And then I find this video from Jeff Kleewer, the guy who's coming here in three weeks, speaking.
27:16: And Jeff Kleewer, who actually looks at the facts, who actually is discerning, explains to his entire congregation why this is a guy we should watch out for.
27:30: And yet, in most places, Tim Keller is celebrated. Tim Keller, for 50 years, pushed social justice on the evangelical church.
27:42: And at the end of his life, there was all sorts of red flags about this guy. A chaplain was hired at Harvard, and Tim Keller congratulates this chaplain.
27:54: He said that Stephen Colbert is a great example of a Christian witness when Stephen Colbert acknowledged that he believed in some form of heaven.
28:03: So there's all these red flags. He believes in theistic evolution. Okay, that's a red flag right there, too.
28:09: He believes that God used evolution to create the earth, to create life. Enormous red flags.
28:17: And yet, he's given a pass by just about everybody. He will not get a pass in this church.
28:22: Okay? Let me be very clear on that. And if people leave because of it, I don't care.
28:29: He is a dangerous teacher. He's subtle. We should not be naive.
28:35: And shame on those pastors who don't do their job. And there are pastors out there who do do their jobs.
28:42: I'm not saying I'm the only one. I'm not. We can have this Elijah syndrome like we're the only one. There are faithful pastors out there.
28:51: I'm just telling you. You won't hear this in most places, okay? But it's true.
28:57: And you can look them up yourself and see the problems. But false teachers, they spread lies.
29:09: I once had an old lady at my old church, Jeanette Madsen. My parents remember who this is.
29:14: And Jeanette Madsen used to say, this wise old woman, she would say, the closest to the truth is the best lie.
29:23: The greatest lie. The closest to the truth. And isn't that the truth?
29:30: It's going to deceive the masses. It's going to deceive just about everybody. Unless, unless, you're practicing
29:36: Hebrews 5, 12 -14, where you are discerning. We need to recognize
29:43: Satan's work. So prepare yourself to face the grim reality of false teachers.
29:49: And the second practice how is through knowing that they twist the scriptures. The third practice how you are to prepare yourself to face the grim reality of false teachers is by understanding that they will be destroyed by the one they reject.
30:02: In the previous point, I explained that these teachers who bring in heresies, Peter describes them as destructive.
30:10: This teaching is destructive as it leads people to destruction. And the ones leading others down this path will face grave consequences for spreading these foreign teachings that lead people astray.
30:23: Look at the end of verse 3, the end of verse 1 here. These teachers who bring in these destructive heresies secretly, they deny the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
30:40: A professing Christian who is caught up in strange teaching. We should be concerned for that person's soul as this teaching is leading that person away from Christ.
30:52: Sometimes people can be caught up in it for a while and be brought back to the truth. That would be like a prodigal son.
30:58: That does happen. But other times people are led completely astray by this strange teaching.
31:06: But it is the one who teaches this destructive heresy, this person, we should be even more concerned about.
31:14: As we read the end of verse 1, what we read is that as they secretly bring in destructive heresies, they are denying the master who bought them.
31:25: Now sometimes people say Jesus only died for the elect. I would say this verse says the opposite of that.
31:31: This verse is saying He died for these false teachers. He died for these people who are hellbound. The problem with them though is that it's not applied to them.
31:41: His finished work that He did at the cross and through His resurrection and through His perfect life, it's not applied to these false teachers because they need to believe for it to be applied to them.
31:54: As we read this, that's what we see. And as they reject the one who died for them,
32:02: Peter writes at the end of verse 1 that they bring upon themselves swift destruction.
32:09: The Bible speaks very strongly against false teachers. Here's another one that gets me.
32:18: So Martin Luther King Jr. is a guy, as Americans, we appreciate his work that took place in the 1960s.
32:26: We must understand this about Martin Luther King Jr. He denied the deity of Christ. He denied the bodily resurrection of Christ.
32:35: Martin Luther King Jr. was a false teacher. We have to recognize that. Now that doesn't mean we can't appreciate some of the changes that happened in America.
32:45: But when he celebrated, we always have to qualify it by saying, do not follow his teaching on the
32:53: Bible because his teaching on the Bible was wrong. The Bible speaks very strongly against false teachers.
33:03: Further down in this chapter, Peter writes in verse 9 that the unrighteous are kept under punishment until the day of judgment.
33:09: In verse 12, Peter writes that they are born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters in which they are ignorant.
33:15: They will also be destroyed in their destruction. Verse 14 says they have hearts trained in greed to curse children.
33:22: They are accursed. Then verse 21 says it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
33:36: Now the letter in the New Testament that's most similar to 2 Peter is the letter of Jude. Verses 4 -7 of Jude, he writes this,
33:46: Certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our
33:56: God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
34:10: And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.
34:23: Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
34:38: This is the future for false teachers, as Peter describes and as Jude echoes.
34:45: The greatest false teacher of all is going to rise up at the end of the age.
34:52: Revelation 13 describes him as the second beast. The first beast, of course, is the
34:58: Antichrist. And at the end of the age, this false prophet, this false prophets of all false prophets, during the final seven -year tribulation, there will very clearly be two religions in the world.
35:14: Earlier I mentioned every false religion is somehow a works righteousness system.
35:21: Biblical Christianity teaches you are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
35:26: False religion teaches you are saved by your own works. Big difference.
35:33: At the end of the age, there's going to be two religions. Biblical Christianity and the religion of the beast.
35:43: This false religion is going to be all about inclusivism. This means all religions are accepted, except for one religion.
35:53: Biblical Christianity. Does this sound familiar? When you look at it, all false religions are really the same.
36:05: But Biblical Christianity says that this doing -your -own -works religion is the road to hell.
36:14: There's only one way to get to heaven, and that's by trusting the finished work of Christ. And if you're here today, and you've never trusted in Christ, believe in the
36:21: Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. But Satan, the master deceiver, and the master of confusion, made all these false religions that say that you can get there on your own.
36:35: It doesn't matter what it is. Hinduism. Buddhism. Jehovah Witnesses. Mormonism.
36:45: We already see this taking place in Rome with the Pope. Let me say something that is politically incorrect, but I believe is true.
36:54: Pope Francis, he's been the Pope for about 10, 11 years. Pope Francis is the greatest false prophet and false teacher in the world.
37:06: He teaches what Satan teaches. What has come out of his mouth during his time as Pope is that you're not going to go to hell for rejecting
37:14: Christ. Just be a good person. He said that. There was one story where a young boy, his dad passed away.
37:26: His dad was an atheist. His dad died an atheist.
37:33: And this little boy's with the Pope, and he asks the Pope, is my dad in hell? And the
37:39: Pope says, was your dad a good father? Yeah, he was a good father. He's not in hell.
37:46: This actually came out of his mouth. You can look it up. It's online. He has discouraged people to evangelize people of other faiths to convert to Christianity.
37:59: I heard Pastor Tom Hughes say that he is applying for the job of being the final false prophet.
38:07: Now, whether or not he gets it, we don't know. It makes sense that the final false prophet would be the
38:13: Pope, since the Pope is the most well -known religious figure in the world. We'll see what unfolds in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.
38:24: But the false prophet, the greatest false teacher in the history of the world, has as his end the lake of fire.
38:32: As Revelation 19 -20 describes, the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet, who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image.
38:46: These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.
38:53: This is the future of the false prophet and the future of all false teachers.
39:00: And as we think about hell, what we need to understand about hell is that not everybody in hell experiences the same level of punishment.
39:10: For example, in Matthew 10 -15 and Matthew 11 -22, Jesus says that some will receive a severe punishment.
39:18: Some will receive a lesser punishment. And as we think about these levels of punishment, it is obvious that Satan is the one who will suffer the most in hell.
39:32: Right after him will be demons, and then maybe mass murderers like Hitler.
39:40: But do you know who else will be high on the list of receiving the most severe punishment in hell?
39:47: False teachers. That's a sobering thought. These people who present themselves as from God.
39:54: Really, they're frauds. What we have seen this morning in 2 Peter and Jude is how strong the language is against them.
40:04: And yet, in our day, they're coddled. People make excuses about certain teachers who have perverted the
40:14: Gospel. They have it mostly right. Where the logical end to their teaching is unbelief.
40:24: It's dangerous. These people are even celebrated.
40:30: And to call them out is considered a grave sin. How dare you call them out?
40:36: I say this, that the greatest sin in our day is not committing the sin.
40:42: It's exposing the sin. This is the climate we live in.
40:48: We have a climate within American evangelicalism that doesn't rebuke false teachers. Where men who are supposed to be shepherds of God's flock aren't fulfilling their task.
40:59: We have pastors who either have very poor discernment or are cowardly. There are certain people who profess
41:06: Christ who are incredibly dangerous. They are leading people away from Christ, not to Him.
41:14: And the Lord is angry. Judgment is being stored up for these false teachers.
41:21: We are surrounded by them. They pastor large churches, serve at colleges and seminaries, speak at conferences and sell books.
41:32: And yet, ultimately, they're leading people astray. But Christ knows who they are.
41:41: And judgment will come upon them. By His grace, if we use the
41:47: Lord's gift of discernment, we can spot them too. It is our job to point them out, warn people, and it is the
41:58: Lord who will bring them under judgment in the future. So prepare yourself to face the grim reality of false teachers.
42:06: And the third practice how is through understanding that they will be destroyed by the one they reject.
42:14: So this is a very serious sermon, as you can tell. But it does need to be preached.
42:23: And there's happier sermons, okay? And that's the good news. We don't just do this every Sunday. But we go where Peter goes.
42:31: This is where Peter has taken us today. So we need to take heed to what he has spoken.
42:39: But next Sunday, we are going to look at points 4 through 7. And I'll give you kind of a heads up here with where we're going here.
42:48: Coming to grips that many will be deceived by them. Facing the frustration that clear teaching will be muddied by false.
42:55: Recognizing their impure motives and taking comfort in knowing that the Lord will do right. You probably didn't write those down, but we'll look at those in detail next
43:04: Sunday. But this time, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in Heaven, we do thank
43:09: You for this time we've had. And it is, like I said, this is not a fun topic. This is not a smiley, rosy topic.
43:18: It's a hard topic, Lord. But it is needed.
43:23: It must be spoken. The truth must be defended. It must be proclaimed, and it must be defended.
43:30: Just like Nehemiah, there must be a trowel that builds the wall and a sword that defends.
43:37: Because if we don't have the sword, then whatever is built will be torn down. We must have both weapons.
43:45: And so I pray that this will be a church full of people who have both weapons in their hand. The trowel that builds and the sword that defends.