On Guard - [2 Peter 14-18]

Well, this morning, as we come to the close of 2 Peter, I've had a great time.

I've been here for every single sermon in this series. I think my wife has also.

It's been a little hit and miss in the evening and whatnot, but here we are at the end of this letter.

I titled this morning the sermon, On Guard. I was going to use the French title, but I thought

I wanted to make sure I had it right first. Of course, actually, that's the truth. But it really means to be on guard.

On guard. You know, they say that. When does somebody say on guard? The beginning of a fencing match.

Exactly. And they do it to give you a warning so that you know they're ready and, hey, you better get ready.

Because it's coming. You know, the battle is on. It's enjoined. But it occurred to me that wouldn't it be great if life was like that?

If before some major event in your life was going to happen, say, you know, let's say before somebody stole your car.

They called you up and said, on guard, I'm going to steal your car. Before the police officer writes you a parking ticket.

Hey, just so you know, I'm about to scratch you out a parking ticket. Before somebody misdirects your investment.

Before they lie to you. Before they break your heart. And on and on it goes.

But that's not the way life is. Thankfully, spiritually speaking.

Peter gives us words to guard ourselves. To be ready. To be prepared.

Because I'm going to tell you something. The false teachers that he's been talking about aren't going to warn you.

They're not going to tap you on the shoulder and say, excuse me, I'm about to lie to you. Would you like to listen? It doesn't happen like that.

I would invite you to open your Bibles to 2nd Peter, chapter 3. We'll be studying this morning, verses 14 to 18, the end of the verse.

And Peter has a message for you. He wants to put you on notice. 2nd

Peter, chapter 3, verses 14 to 18. If you didn't bring a Bible with you, there should be one of the black pew

Bible somewhere near you. Again, as I've often warned, a hymnal will do you no good during the sermon.

Verse 14. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace.

Spotless and blameless. And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.

Just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you.

As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand.

Which the untaught and unstable distort. As they do also the rest of the scriptures to their own destruction.

You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard.

So that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and 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. Amen. Well, 2nd

Peter was written to warn the early church about a future invasion of false teachers.

And the heresies that they would bring into the church. Just as 1st

Peter was written to teach the church how to deal with persecution. The pressure to capitulate and displease the

Lord from outside the church. That's what persecution is. 2nd

Peter was written to warn us about something more insidious. Something not so obvious. That is pressure to leave the truth from inside the church.

Wolves in sheep's clothing would come into the flock. And they would think nothing of abusing their positions of influence within the church.

To satisfy their own greed, their own lusts, their own desires. And last week we looked at three promises to live by in verses 8 through 13.

Just briefly in recap. And I mean briefly. The first promise to live by was

God will act patiently. God will act patiently. He hasn't delayed

His... Well, He hasn't forgotten to come. He has delayed it so that He can bring about His exact purposes.

Secondly, God will bring a fiery judgment. For those who mock, those who scoff, those who say,

Where is the promise of His coming? He's going to judge them. And He's not just going to judge them.

Our third promise to live by was that God will create a new universe. He's going to destroy the earth and the current universe.

And then create a new one in which righteousness will dwell. Righteousness will dwell.

And ultimately these promises are not made just so that we can kind of muddle through life.

Just so that we can kind of get by. But so that we will eagerly anticipate the return of the

Lord Jesus Christ. We are to live lives that are pleasing to Him in the here and now.

We are to live every moment as if Jesus Christ could return because He might.

He could come back right now. And this morning as we walk through this text,

I want to draw your attention to five alarms. Five warnings. Five basically on -guard moments.

That you need to heed so that you will remain faithful until the Lord returns or takes you home.

Five exhortations to godly living now. Right today.

So that you are not drawn away by those who would deceive you. Those who exist for the purpose of drawing you away from the truth.

But instead would remain true to the master who bought you with his own blood.

Our first alarm. First command. You must enthusiastically anticipate the return of Christ.

You must enthusiastically anticipate the return of Christ. Verse 14.

Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent.

A command. Peter again sets the standard for Christian conduct.

He says, anticipating the return of the Lord is a characteristic. That phrase there, you look for.

Since you look for these things. It's a participle. And as you know from your years of studying

Greek or listening to us talk about Greek, a participle is a verbal noun.

And when it is used to describe someone, it means it's basically, it's a characteristic.

It's part of the warp and woof of their life. It is an inherent part of their DNA. So believers, just as a basic part of who they are, look forward to the second coming.

I've made up a new word because believers look forward to the second coming. And these scoffmockers, the scoffers and mockers,

I just lumped it all together. They're scoffmockers. Scoffers, scoffmockers, mock, and together they're scoffmockers.

It's in stark contrast to the scoffmockers who question the promise.

Where's the return or where's the promise of his coming? Where is that? Show me a

Christian who does not believe in the bodily return in glory of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And I will show you someone who is not a Christian at all.

It's an unbeliever masquerading as a Christian. Now, does that sound harsh?

It's not any more harsh than what Peter has said and what he will say. And the last thing

I want to be accused of, we had a dinner of the ecstasy of the night. They said, don't water it down. I'm not going to water it down.

I'm going to give you the undiluted truth. Somebody who's not looking, doesn't believe in the second coming of Christ, isn't a

Christian. You have to believe in it. The command is to eagerly, to diligently look for these things.

It's another way of translating diligent, to be eager, to anticipate, to look forward to it.

And in light of what Peter has just discussed, the coming destruction of the earth, all that the earth contains and everything around it, the entire universe, the anticipation of heaven with which we ought to live,

Peter commands his readers to be diligent. It means to be especially conscientious in discharging an obligation, to be zealous, eager, to take pains, make every effort.

And again, it's a participle. It's part of who we are. We ought to just be thinking about it all the time.

And it is because you are eager, because you anticipate, because you're looking forward to the second coming of Christ, that you look for his return.

You love it. You can't wait for it. Even so, come Lord Jesus. One cannot truly believe that the

Lord could come back at any moment. His wrath is going to consume every sin -tainted thing that exists.

And just kind of yawn. Oh, Jesus is coming back. He's going to destroy everything.

You can't believe that and have that response. Belief isn't just to know something.

Even as we believe in the gospel, we don't just acknowledge the facts. It changes our lives.

And this is a life -changing truth. If you believe Jesus Christ is coming again, that will change your life.

You will no longer be someone who just comes Sunday, and then you leave and you kind of go, well,

I wonder what we're going to do next Sunday. It will be all -consuming for you. Your conversations will change.

Your stewardship of your time and your money will change. Is this eagerness in you?

Does it pour out of you? I'm just reminded of that Gatorade commercial, you know, where they drink the purple

Gatorade and they sweat out purple sweat. Is the anticipation of the second coming so in you that it sweats out of you?

That you're just so filled with it? Are you exhausting yourself in anticipating the return of Christ?

Enthusiasm. There are some results of this commanded enthusiasm.

First result would be peace. Look at it again at verse 14. To be found by him, by Jesus, in peace.

When you exhaust yourself in the anticipation of his return, when you exhaust yourself in the work of the gospel, when you are zealous for his coming, when you are taking pains to live in light of his promises, the result is not concern, worry, anxiousness, nervousness, depression, sadness, loneliness, or discontent.

If you're thinking, the Lord could come back at any moment now, and then you just kind of go, I just want to go in my room and shut off the lights and just be by myself.

I'm so sad. The result is peace. A peace of mind that can come only from complete devotion and dependence upon the

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what do you suppose the people who have this peace of mind will be thinking when the

Lord comes back, when he does return? If you're at peace with God, if you're thinking rightly, if you're anticipating eagerly the returning of Christ, do you think he comes back and you think,

Oh, no, not now. I've got something else to do.

You say, you don't know my life. I have plenty to be depressed about. I have plenty to be worried about.

I have plenty to be sad about. And I just encourage you, we have people who struggle with various areas.

And as a body, we need to minister to those who are struggling. We weep with those who weep.

We mourn with those who mourn. We come alongside those who are weaker. But no believer should be allowed to sit in that rut, to wallow in self -pity.

That's what the world does. We have a hope, and our hope is based not only on heaven, but our hope of the

Lord's soon return. Believers know that this world is going to be consumed.

The things that frustrate us, that concern us, that occupy our time and thinking are all going to be destroyed.

And we, as believers, live for that day now by living in expectant hope now.

Pastor Mike likes to say that if you've got problems, glance at your problems, gaze upon Christ, focus on Christ.

The more you focus on Him, the less disconcerting your problems are, the less they seem.

It's okay to acknowledge that you have problems, but we are to confess our sins, we are to seek help for those issues that we struggle with, but we anticipate eagerly the coming of the

Lord. We do not, as Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians, grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

We have a hope. He is returning. Whatever your problem, whatever your situation, no matter how unsolvable it may seem, in light of eternity and in light of the imminent return of the

Lord, it is a snap of the fingers. It is a moment. It will pass.

The worst situation in your life right now, when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back, guess what? It stops.

And He could return at any moment. The other two results of living enthusiastically, first of all, you have peace, but the other two results, you will be, note in your text, spotless and blameless.

Peter likes this phrase. He uses it a few times. He first used it, you don't have to turn there, but in 1

Peter 1, verses 18 and 19, listen, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life, inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

Unblemished and spotless. Same Greek words. And he used precisely the opposite terms to describe false teachers.

In 2 Peter 2, verse 13, he called them stains and blemishes.

He just negated those two words, and that's how he described false teachers. The thoughts and desires of false teachers, as hard as they may be to camouflage, well, this is what they do.

Their thoughts and desires you cannot know because they don't come in, as I've said before, they don't come in and say, hey,

I'm a false teacher. I like to just sit right there in the back row and kind of watch for a while.

They disguise themselves. They look like part of the flock, but those sinful desires will eventually manifest themselves in actions.

And when he talks about spots and blemishes, he's saying, listen, they're going to be revealed.

But in contrast to false teachers, to be spotless is to have a character that is untainted or without faults.

To be spotless is to imitate Christ internally, to think his thoughts, to model him.

And you say, well, I can't be spotless. I can never do that. Well, never's a long time.

You will someday have the mind of Christ when the

Lord returns or when you die. But we have a goal, even though we have not attained it yet, we continue to strive after it.

We want to have the mind of Christ. To be blameless is to conduct oneself without reproach.

It means, listen, I have, I'm thinking rightly and I want to live rightly. So it's thoughts and actions.

When he describes Jesus as spotless, blameless, however, however it was, same thing, internally perfect, externally perfect.

And that is what we are to model for, model our lives after. That is what we are to strive after.

Our second alarm. You must think rightly about the grace of Christ. You must think rightly about the grace of Christ.

Look at verse 15. And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.

Regard, again, is a command. And it means, and I really enjoyed this, to engage in an intellectual process.

Think, consider, regard. You know, we think, well, I regard you fondly. What does that mean? Try saying that to your wife, you know.

I regard you fondly. How about,

I have engaged in an intellectual process and I consider you highly.

Still would sound terrible, wouldn't it? But it is a thought process. Christianity is not check your mind at the door.

You have to think. It is a thinking man's religion. Peter is saying, think this through.

Think about it rightly. Do not use grace, patience, the patience of God, as a license to sin.

That's what false teachers do. When you get saved, and for most of us,

I think, it was out of some kind of work salvation system. Whatever that system is, whether it was Catholicism, Mormonism, or just thinking that somehow, well,

I know there's a God and I know that when I get there, he'll just go, you know, hey, you did pretty well.

You know, I figure I only need 70 % to pass. That's what it was in school. God can't be any harder than that.

We all have this work salvation mentality before we get saved. But whatever that system is, your friends, the people that knew you before you were saved, get confused by this concept of grace.

For example, you start talking to them about grace, and then they say, well, what you're saying really is that you could just go ahead and sin, and you could do whatever you want, and God doesn't really care.

That's not grace. You explain grace to them, and they say, well, doesn't that just lead to more sin?

No. Grace properly understood is really, truly, what we were singing about this morning, amazing.

Why would God save someone who is his enemy, who has no desire to seek him, who has offended him every single moment of his or her life?

The grace of God is beyond the capacity of an unbeliever to grasp. For believers, the more we know about ourselves, the more we understand ourselves and our sin, the more amazing grace becomes.

And in this context, Peter is contrasting the mocking of the scoffers who make jokes about the return of the

Lord, how it just seems like Jesus has forgotten to come back, maybe with the attitude that you ought to have about it.

God is not late. He is patient. He is gracious.

Had the Lord returned, let's put it this way, for all these scoffers, scoff mockers, if the Lord had returned before the readers of 2

Peter had been saved, then what? They wouldn't have been saved.

That is grace. Look back at your own lives before salvation and know that the

Lord could have returned before that. He could have returned at any time during your life, and it would have been perfectly just for him to do so.

But he did not. One of the reasons for this patience of the

Lord, this gap from his leaving to his coming back, is so that you, if you know him, might be saved.

I'm pretty grateful for the patience of God. Now, I want you to think about all the people that you love who are not saved.

The patience of the Lord in not returning yet could well be their salvation.

That's a little bit emotional, I think. I want the

Lord to return, but there are so many for whom I pray and plead with the

Lord to save. When we think about it that way, we want the

Lord to return, but wouldn't it be great if everyone that we loved were saved first?

We ought to have a genuine interest and desire to see

God work a miracle in the lives of others. Our focus,

I was talking to Barry earlier about evangelism. A few people went out the other day. Patience of the

Lord in not returning is an opportunity for us to practice what we preach, to go out and preach the gospel.

Jesus said, I'm talking about the attitude that we ought to have with regard to the lost.

Luke 15, he said, I tell you that in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

Heaven rejoices when people repent. We ought to be working toward that, toward seeing people repent.

It is great news for those who preach the gospel of Jesus Christ that God is still in the business of saving sinners, that he is delaying his return.

We don't know for how long, but while he is delaying his return, he is saving people.

That's why he's delaying his return, because all that he's going to save have not been saved yet.

So when you go out and preach the gospel, the good news is some eventually are going to receive and repent.

You can have that confidence when you go out and do that, knowing that God is still saving sinners, even today.

If that were not true, he would have come back already. He is patient.

He is gathering those whom he is regenerating.

So first, you must enthusiastically anticipate the return of Christ.

Secondly, you must think rightly about the grace of Christ, about this patience of God. It is a grace that he is patient.

Thirdly, third action, or third alarm, you must learn the truth and evaluate the teaching of others.

Oh, not another one of those doctrinal things.

Yes, another one of those doctrinal things. First, I want you to note that Paul and Peter wrote about the same topics.

Look at verse 15. And regard the patience of our

Lord as salvation, just as also our beloved brother Paul.

Just as also our beloved brother Paul. Paul rightly understood the patience of God in his delay of the return of Christ.

It was not as the false teachers, the scoffers, the mock scoffers, and unbelievers asserted that God could not or would not bring it about, but that he, just as at the time of the flood, gave all men everywhere the opportunity to repent.

God does not delight in the destruction of the wicked. There's no space between Peter and Paul on this.

There's no division or conflict in their writings with regard to the grace of God, with regard to the second coming.

Peter doesn't say, you know what, Paul got this wrong, that wrong, the other thing wrong. He said, Paul wrote about the same things.

Paul's concerned about the same things. Second, also notice that Peter calls Paul a beloved brother.

Again, look at verse 15. Just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you as also in his letters.

At first blush, you might think, so what, beloved brother? Well, this is the same Paul who withstood

Peter to his face in Galatians. Why? Because Peter was wrong. Peter added obedience to the law, to the grace of God.

Paul confronted him on it, and he doesn't say, you know, that Paul, he's arrogant.

That Paul, he's no good. That Paul, I mean, I have my joke about the Pope thing, but that's neither here nor there.

Paul went to Peter, confronted him on it, and the result wasn't bitterness. Think about this in your own personal life.

If you go and you confront another Christian who needs correction, what should the result be?

The result should be a change in life, hopefully for the other person, but also no bitterness, no grudge, no distance, no separation.

He didn't say, Paul, that other apostle, you know, that other guy. He's the beloved brother.

He's the brother I love. That is biblical reconciliation. That's a biblical mindset.

Third note that Paul's letters were written not out of his own thoughts. Paul didn't invent anything any more than Peter did, but he wrote according to the wisdom given him.

Well, what is a source of godly wisdom? You know, just a school of hard knocks?

No. That word there, wisdom, means transcendent wisdom, wisdom that God imparts to those who are close to him.

Peter doesn't say, you know, Paul had some pretty good ideas. Just kind of be a little discerning about him.

Why not? Because he knew the source of Paul's writings.

He, like Peter, had been instructed by the Lord Jesus himself. The Lord instructed

Paul after his resurrection. And Paul, like Peter, also had been moved by the

Holy Spirit to write his letters. Fourth, notice that sometimes cutting scripture straight, that is, getting it right, employing, even as Pastor Mike's going to be teaching proper hermeneutics, sometimes understanding scripture is difficult.

Look at verse 16. Speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand.

Paul's letters speak. They literally, present, active, participle, as part of their DNA, they continually speak, talk.

That's what all of scripture does. And it always accomplishes the purpose for which

God sends it. It convicts of sin. Scripture saves. We know all these things that are true. But he writes that they speak.

And Paul wrote of these things, he says, of the return of the Lord. And Peter notes that some things are hard to understand.

Well, when it comes to eschatology, when it comes to end times, when it comes to the second coming of Christ, you can go to my bookshelf and you can look and you can see that there are books written by godly men, good

Christian brothers, who disagree on how things are going to end.

They come to scripture and they come to different conclusions on these things. Eschatology is not simple.

It takes a lot of work. And you say, why? Isn't it perspicacious?

Doesn't Psalm 19 say that scripture is clear? Yes. But that doesn't always mean that it is simple to interpret.

It's not easy to interpret correctly. It takes work. And if it were simple, every believer would always come to the same conclusion.

And we know that it's work. Another plug for Iwana. Listen to the Iwana verse.

Paul writes to Timothy and he says, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman, as someone who works, who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth, dividing the word of truth accurately.

It takes work. It is difficult to put it together and handling scripture inaccurately brings shame.

We need to work diligently at it. I mean, it says that right there. The opposite would be, Be diligent, show yourself as a workman approved, so you don't need to be ashamed.

But what would be the opposite? I didn't do my homework. I was sloppy with it and I am ashamed. Fifth, notice that there is a higher judgment for teachers.

Look at verse 16. Which the untaught and unstable, he's talking about Paul's writings, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the scriptures.

How do we know that Paul's writings are scripture? It says so right there. Peter said it. Which the untaught and unstable distort, as they also do the rest of the scriptures, to their own destruction.

As I said, there are some things that are hard to get right in scripture. But how much more if you are untaught and unstable?

Untaught simply means ignorance. One man says of it, Being ignorant of fundamental principles of hermeneutics, that is biblical interpretation, they fail, the false teachers, fail to see that one must interpret a passage in harmony with its context and the teaching of the passage as a whole.

In other words, these false teachers are more than willing to use verses as a launching pad, to wrench them out of context.

They are also unstable. They lack spiritual muscle. In fact, I think that word is the same

Greek word from which we get steroids. They don't have, you know, they're not pumped up. They don't have the muscle to do this right.

How can you have stability? How can you have the spiritual muscles, as it were, to do the hard work of cutting

Scripture straight when you don't have the Holy Spirit? Paul wrote in 1

Corinthians 2 .14 that you cannot understand Scripture apart from the Spirit. And because of their lack of hermeneutical skill, because of their lack of ability to cut the

Word of God straight, they distort Paul's letters and Peter notes, everything else in Scripture.

Now, have you ever really listened to a false teacher, a really bad teacher of Scripture? If you have, you'll understand this definition.

To distort means to cause inward pain, torture, or torment.

In this context, it really means to twist Scripture, to so wrench it out of place, to just kind of take it and pull it out and use it for some other purpose.

It originally was used to even apply of wrenching limbs of a body.

You know, to take somebody's limb and just move it out of its socket. It's pretty ugly.

But that's what they do. That's what false teachers do. They torture the truth. They wrench these Scriptures out of context.

They separate it from the context so that they can create false doctrines.

Doctrines of demons, as Paul would write. Now, they give you a little bit of the truth.

They give it just a little bit of a cloak, a cover, something to make it look respectable.

But let me give you a couple of examples of really bad hermeneutics that are common. Did you know that Jesus wants you to be rich?

And I'll just do what false teachers do. John chapter 10, verse 10. Jesus said,

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. That means that Jesus wants you to be rich.

There are entire ministries based on this verse. And if you look at the context, I don't have time to walk through John 10 today, but if you look at the context, you will see it has nothing to do with earthly riches and everything to do with salvation.

There are a myriad of other examples. You know, Jesus had a garment without a seam.

Therefore, Jesus was rich. Why shouldn't we be like Jesus? Judas was the treasurer. Well, you don't have a treasurer if you don't have anything in the bag.

You know, what could Judas steal if there was nothing to steal? Jesus had a lot of money. Jesus had advanced men who, you know, went out and scattered out the area, made sure he stayed in all the finest places.

I'm telling you, if you watch, you know, your initial response will be to laugh, but then you realize, and I understand that because it is funny.

I mean, when you take something so out of context, but then you realize who they're really after. The percentage, and I haven't done my scientific study on this, but I know from past experience that it is the most vulnerable people who give the most money to these people.

They are after them. They are out to pilfer from widows. They steal from those who can least afford it.

And all these distortions, note from the text, that it will lead to their own destruction. One man says this, in attempting to destroy the

Bible, wrench it out of context, they destroy themselves.

And that's why it's so important for us to learn doctrine, to equip believers to discern the word for themselves.

2 Timothy 2 .2 The things which you have heard, this is Paul telling Timothy how to run a church.

He says, the things which you have heard from me, in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men, who will also be able to teach, or who will be able to teach others also.

That's the point. We want to raise up men who are able to teach others. That's why it's so important for our church to know who's going to fill the pulpit, to know who's going to teach, to be able to build trust, to know what the men and the ladies who will teach in our

Bible studies, to know what they believe. And it's also why James warned that there should not be many teachers, because there's a more strict judgment.

When you're handling the word of God, it is serious business. When you wrench things out of context, you bring destruction upon yourself.

How do you avoid wrenching anything out of context? Or how do you avoid falling for the scams of the false teachers?

By being like the Bereans. By evaluating all teaching in light of Scripture.

By keeping things in context. You don't have to read 15 hermeneutical books to know that if someone gives you one little part of one little verse, and they say, well, this is what it means, and you put it back in the context, and it doesn't mean that at all, that they're wrong.

You know, have you ever heard anybody say, well, you can make the Bible say whatever you want? Well, it's true. If you cut enough things out around it, you can make the

Bible say anything. You know, you can make it sound like your entire life should be lived in a hurry.

You could just quote Jesus saying what you do, do quickly to Judas. That's not the context, but you can make it up however you want.

Alarm number four. You must watch over your own life. You must watch over your own life.

Look at verse 17. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, being warned, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness.

What's the old saying? Forewarned is forearmed. It doesn't mean to have big forearms.

It just means that you're ready. These false teachers are going to twist

Scripture. That's what they do. They are going to break every single rule of hermeneutics, of logic, of reason in order to try and justify their perverse theology.

And they're going to use some Bible verses. And you know this, so don't be fooled.

You are forewarned. Be forearmed. That term there, to be on your guard, literally means to keep on guarding yourselves.

It is a military picture. It portrays a sentinel, an alert sentinel.

And Peter commands believers to be on the lookout for those who would distort Scripture because they're false teachers.

I worked in an area as a police officer. I worked in an area in the foothills. And one of the delights there in California is, especially during the summer, we would have rattlesnakes.

People would call up the station and ask you to deal with them. For years we had, my folks home, had a rattlesnake hide above the mantel that my dad had killed with a nightstick.

And I thought, he's pretty brave. So they'd call me out and have a rattlesnake on my front porch there.

Deputy Cooley, what are you going to do about it? And I'd just go, I'm going to shoot it. And that's what

I did. I had this, you know, I had a little snake shot and so I'd put a little round in there and I'd go, you don't mind if I shoot it?

And they'd go, no, absolutely. Boom, you know, that was it. Done. Saw a snake, shot, same.

But here's what you wouldn't do with a rattlesnake. You wouldn't go, oh, it's a lovely rattlesnake on your porch. You know what? I'm just going to turn my back and see what happens.

We know what false teachers do. They are that rattlesnake. You don't just go, oh, nice rattlesnake.

Let's see, see how it goes. They're going to attack. That's what they do. That's what they do.

False teachers. What does that call them? I've taken a column, errorists, because it sounds like terrorists.

They are, false teachers are unprincipled, which means they are unseemly, disgraceful, lawless.

I mean, unprincipled doesn't sound so bad. They are lawless, disgraceful. They are the lowest of the low.

I mean, decency, I guess, prevents Peter from saying what he really thinks. They are low. Since they don't have the courtesy to kind of announce themselves, you have to listen to them.

Listen to what they do. Listen to how they wrench things out of Scripture. And you can hear that little rattle going on in the background.

How do we know who these spiritual traitors are? Because they're the ones who are shooting at us, who are attacking us, who are attacking the truth.

And note, our text tells us they don't just make a mistake. That's not what error means in there. I mean, we all make mistakes, right?

To err is human. But they do it by design.

Listen to what this word means. It means delusion, deceit, deception. They are either deluded or deceivers or they are both.

But it doesn't really matter. They don't just make mistakes.

They are out to deceive. But given that they are mishandling the equivalent of spiritual nuclear weapons,

I mean, imagine you go over to somebody's house and they're just kind of, hey, what are you doing today? I'm just kind of putting together a little atomic bomb.

That would be disconcerting. Peter has one final admonition.

He says, stay away from them. He commanded believers to stay on guard for themselves so that, see that so that in the verse there?

That's hinnah. That's a purpose clause. So that you're not carried away by what they do.

So that you're not carried away by the tide of their sinfulness. The warning is that we should stay from them.

Stay away from them. To avoid any kind of impulse to suddenly go along with their teachings.

There's no call. Peter doesn't say, you know what? Stick alongside them. Just kind of come alongside them.

Kind of correct them a little bit. Or maybe stay inside their church and see if you can transform it from the inside.

I mean, would you hang out with someone when they shut off the lights? You know, there was like a nuclear glow about them.

Would you hang out with that person? No. Would you hang out with somebody they said, what are you doing today?

And they said, you know, well, I'm working on some kind of deadly virus that I'm hoping will spread. No. So why are you going to stay with someone who's got a spiritual desire to spread false viruses, false doctrine?

Someone told you they were going to violently overthrow the government. Would you hang out with them? No. Why would you hang out with somebody who wants to overthrow

God and His law? There is risk in being, even in the sphere of these errorists.

You can fall from your own steadfastness, Peter says. Now, does that mean that you can lose your salvation? No. It's not what it means.

But you can lose the assurance of your salvation. You can listen and be consumed by their bad teaching.

You can see and model their behavior. And most importantly, you can lose the peace of mind that comes with having your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ and anticipating

His concern or His return. And you'll certainly lose many opportunities for service to the body and evangelism.

And you will have completely forgotten what it means to eagerly anticipate the return of Christ.

So we've seen four alarms so far. You must enthusiastically anticipate the return of Christ. You must think rightly about the grace of Christ.

You must learn the truth and evaluate the teachings of others. You must watch. You must guard your own life.

And finally, you must grow spiritually. Look at verse 18. Instead, but grow, or instead, or but, grow, rather than doing those things, grow in the grace and knowledge of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Spiritual growth keeps you from getting off track, from being moved from the truth, from being concerned about this world, this decaying world that is awaiting destruction.

It protects you from being tempted by these deceivers. Harry Ironside describes spiritual growth as the unfailing panacea, the cure -all for all spiritual ills.

So, how does one grow in the grace and knowledge of our

Lord Jesus Christ? Can you simply say, grow! I want to grow.

I want to be big. I want to be a spiritual giant. It would be much like a bodybuilder saying,

I'm going to just look at my muscles and make them bigger. A musician sitting there and going, you know, if I stir up my guitar long enough,

I'm going to get better. It doesn't work. How do you do it?

You study Scripture. You pray. You evangelize. You ever think about how evangelizing just kind of grows your own knowledge of the

Gospel and of Scripture? Serving. Having fellowship with one another.

Listening intently to sermons. Reading books written by godly writers. These are all examples of spiritual weightlifting, as it were.

Growing. No Christian is born mature. You don't just come out of the baptismal pool.

That's not where you get saved, but you get my point. You don't just get, you know, saved and jump into the pulpit.

In fact, there are scriptural warnings against that. We don't put new converts into the pulpit. It's a process.

You need to learn. You need to grow. You need to exercise your spiritual muscles, as it were. And the more you understand grace, the more you will proclaim the

Gospel of grace. The more you will worship the God of grace. The more you will thank the Lord who saved you by grace.

And the more the concept of grace will thrill your soul. You'll never be fooled into accepting cheap grace.

In other words, the idea that you can somehow be saved and just sin freely. You'll never be conned into thinking that you can deserve or earn grace, that you did anything to do it.

The more you know about the Lord, the more you understand grace, the more you want to obey

Him. The more you want to put yourself under Him. The more you know of your Savior, the more you will marvel at His love for you.

And the more you know about Jesus, the more you will be equipped to proclaim Him. The more you know about the

Messiah, the one who fulfilled the prophecies and is returning to judge, rule, and reign, the more you will want to learn.

It is an inexhaustible subject. If you start now and you say, I'm going to learn everything I can possibly learn about God, Christ, the

Bible, the Spirit, I'm going to just spend the rest of my life devoted to study.

You wouldn't know anything remotely resembling everything by the time you died. It is an inexhaustible subject.

We will be learning about the glories of Christ for all eternity.

And look finally at the closing doxology, verse 18, to Him be the glory, to Christ be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity, amen.

Now, it's a little bit of a jarring ending. I mean, He's been going on about false teachers, guard yourself, you know, be consumed with looking for the second coming.

I mean, it's been like warning, warning, command, warning, danger, and then all of a sudden a doxology.

Well, I think He spent so much time describing false teachers, their character, the coming judgments, their mocking, warning against their teachings and their character that He concludes with this praise as if to say, beloved,

I told you to look forward to His coming, to eagerly anticipate it. And I'm going to close with something to get your minds focused on Him.

Jesus Christ is worthy of all praise and glory now and forever.

That's what you will spend eternity thinking, singing, praising Him, to Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity until the end of time.

Peter concludes this letter about the coming of false teachers, the warning that he's written to these churches with several commands.

Peter is nearing the end of his life and he's making every effort to make sure that those who will be left behind when he dies are ready for what is coming.

How about you? Are you ready to withstand the claims of false teachers? Can you walk into the

CBD warehouse sale and sort out the good and the bad and the ugly? Are you convinced in your mind that not everyone who says they are

Bible teachers are actually Bible teachers? The battle is on. The enemy is cloaked.

He's not making himself known. He's not standing in front of you saying, on guard, are you ready? He's engaged.

Satan, false teachers are attacking the truth and they're attacking you.

They want to pull you away from the truth. Are you ready to defend yourself? Let's pray.

Our Father, even as we eagerly, excitedly anticipate the return of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we acknowledge that you have given us responsibilities even now.

The means to guard ourselves, to guard our families. Father, let us not regard your patience as any kind of license to sin, but rather as a license to serve.

As an opportunity, knowing that you are patient.

An opportunity to preach the gospel. To know that during this time of patience you are going to save people.

If it were not so, the Lord would come back now. Father, would you just so drive us to your word.

Drive us to the truth. Drive us to the teaching that will guard us, that will shield us, that will protect us from all false teaching and all false teachers.

Would you make this a church that delights, that eagerly awaits your coming, but not a church that sits around and simply begins a countdown.

But a church that is actively participating in the work of Christ until the day he returns.