We are going to be in 2 Peter, this morning again, 2 Peter chapter 2, 2 Peter chapter 2. Yeah, I know it is Christmas season, but we began in 2 Peter recently, and we’ve been doing so many changes all over the place in all kinds of ways the last couple months. I didn’t want to already suspend this and jump into a different. Series, so we’re talking about false teachers this Christmas season, but it’s not disconnected. It’s not disconnected from Christmas. It’s not disconnected from the beauty of the season of Advent, and I think we’ll see that. 2 Peter chapter 2, the Apostle continues on. The false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction, and many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth. 2 Peter chapter 2, the Apostle continues on. The false prophets will be blasphemed and agree they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
Jessica and I, we were in Scotland a few weeks ago. The first thing that we did when we got in the rental car. We started driving south down this little highway that runs through Scotland as we stopped at the famed Loch Ness. So it was only 25, 30 minutes south of the airport, and sure enough, there it is. It’s a loch. It’s a pretty long lake. It’s beautiful, but we went to Urquhart Castle, and this castle is in ruins, and you go in there, and you can see what’s left. What’s left of this castle is beautiful, and you can see just kind of the history of it, and spiraling stone staircases, and even where the prison was, and there was just all these different facets of this castle, and you feel like you’re transported back in time when people were in a completely different way. And they had all these banners out, and it would say who was in control of the castle at what point in what century. So it would be like Scotland, Scotland, England, England, Scotland, Scotland, England, just depending on who was fighting and who was winning at the time. But it was a castle in ruins. The majority of it was knocked over, and they had out front a life-size actual replica of the catapult that would have destroyed the castle. And with it, the actual boulders that would have been fired from it, and they were about that big, big round, three foot, four foot wide stone, almost circular completely, and you can imagine this catapult destroying this once beautiful castle, and it’s just like our hearts and our spirits. We’ve been talking about heart work, right, and heart work is you and I going inside there and doing the hard work of repenting, of surrendering, of admitting where we’re wrong, admitting where we need to grow, letting the spirit, surrendering to the spirit’s work so that we’re sanctified more, renovation of the heart, if you will. The spirit’s constantly doing that. In our hearts, and so that’s a lot of the work. That’s a lot of what we’ve been talking about. But Peter now shows us, though, and this is so important, heart work is not just what the spirit’s doing in there, it’s also what we’re putting up on the outside to protect it. If you have the most beautiful castle in all the world, but it’s susceptible. If it’s susceptible to every catapult that comes along, I don’t care how beautiful it is, it’s not going to stand very long. And I think that what Peter’s getting at here in this passage, and you’ll see it is, for all that God does in sanctifying Christians, all that Christ has done to save us and redeem us, we talked about we’re partakers of the divine nature, there is also this defensive outward mechanism by which we protect our hearts. That precious part of us that God has renewed and redeemed so that an outside force, an outside enemy doesn’t destroy our souls, doesn’t undo the good work that God has done in there. So he talks about false teachers, and he’s saying, watch out for false teachers. Watch out for false teachers. And the point he makes here, right off the bat in verse one, is this. Watch out for them, because false teachers will always be around. False teachers will always be around.
He says false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. So the best place for us to start, I think, in thinking about this passage, is to go to the wisdom writer in Ecclesiastes. Because what does the wisdom writer say? He says,
So a lot of things in life that you and I count shocking aren’t really shocking at all. Or that we go, can you believe how corrupt the government is? I mean, this is an outrage. Well, government’s been corrupt since there’s been human governments, right? Can you believe the moral decline of society? Well, society’s been declining for as long as society’s been around, right? Or adversity in your life. I can’t believe. I must be the only person walking through this kind of difficulty. Well, there’s nothing new under the sun. And when you realize that, it gives you the right perspective to deal with the adversity at hand. And still, another very valuable thing the wisdom writer says in his chapter seven, he says, Don’t say, I wish things were as they once were. How come things can’t be like the former days? He said, That doesn’t come from the voice of wisdom to say that. So I don’t need to look in the past and go, how come things can’t be as good as they once were? Because nothing’s as good as you remember it, right? We’re as Christians going onward to eternity. I don’t want to reach back. But I want to live faithful in the moment. And I want to live faithful in the moment, realizing there’s nothing new or unique to me. There’s only discovering what it looks like to deal with adversity in the Christian life. That’s all there is. Nothing’s taking God by surprise.
So the issue of false teachers is no exception. It’s perennial in the scriptures. It’s perennial in the Old Testament. It’s perennial in the history of the church. And it’s certainly perennial for us in our modern age. In our modern age. One of the very first things that is said to the people in Deuteronomy, in chapter 3, the Lord warns them, don’t listen to false teachers who tell you about their dreams, who tell you about what you should do. He goes on in Isaiah, and Isaiah warns the people, you listen to people who told you you’re saved. Guess what? You’re not saved. You’re not saved. The press of pagan idolaters, idolatry, the press of false teachers teaching them things that are contrary to God’s word, it’s ever present. For the Old Testament church, for Old Testament saints, and so also for us. One of the first things Jesus says, Sermon on the Mount, chapter 7, beware of false teachers. In Luke, Jesus says, whoa, we should be on the lookout. So you and I have to be the kind of people that are constantly on the lookout for what the Bible says you have to be on a constant lookout for. When Paul leaves the Ephesian church, at the end of Acts chapter 20, he says, when I leave, here’s what’s going to happen. Wolves are going to come in among you. And then you go all the way to the very end in Revelation, and we just went through that, and what happens all the way to the end? We’re told that the second, the, the false prophet, what does he do? Well, he deceives the nations. So you have an abundant testimony from the Bible, from church history, and all the different heresies throughout the centuries, all the way to John’s revelation at the very end. Wherever the word of God is present, okay, wherever the word of God is present, lies will be told. It’s that simple. Where you find, where you find the word of God, close by, there’s a slithering snake looking to counteract it with a lie.
And I want us to get this in our heads about false teaching. False teaching is not an on-paper problem. Okay? False teaching is a real-life problem. What I mean is this. A great, a great deal of time is spent by, I think, a number of guys, well-meaning, arguing about this small point, that small point of, of, of theology and doctrines, and, and even to, I think, the point of arrogance going on about, of what this church father said, what that church father said, and what’s the right way to view this, having the nuance of just the right language. Now, is it bad to study theology? Is it bad to study theology? Is it bad to go deep and to know the Word of God? Absolutely not. But there’s a real risk when your teaching, what you believe, is simply an on-paper cerebral exercise. Like, two smart guys, and they’re debating theology, and boy, that was interesting. But at the end of the day, you go home, it doesn’t actually make that big of a difference in your life. I want to be careful about having a theology, a body of teaching that’s that. It’s a cerebral exercise. It’s a theological kind of game to play that we can talk about it, because that’s not really the purpose or point of theology.
And I want you to think about this with me all the way back in the garden. The serpent didn’t just change Eve’s opinion. The serpent didn’t alter just her thoughts. The serpent altered her.
He went up through her sensual self, up through her feelings, up through desire, and changed her mind.
Did God really say, did you know that you could be just like God? And what does Genesis tell us? All of a sudden she looked and she saw how beautiful it was. Eve got a picture of Eve without God. That’s what false teaching does. It doesn’t just change our minds to think differently. False teaching alters and changes our understanding of ourselves, our understanding of people in the world, and ultimately false teaching changes our view of who we believe God is. Really and truly.
Doctrines that you hold, doctrines you don’t hold, the things you believe, they are not sitting in your head. They are forming your heart. They’re forming your very soul. And I think we have to lift our sense of seriousness when it comes to, when it comes to what we believe and why we believe it. One way that it’s been said is ideas have consequences. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that. Ideas have consequences. If you went through human history and you chase like the Enlightenment and Aristotle and all these different guys with these new philosophies, you can point to R.C. Sproul. R.C. Sproul had a book on this that he wrote many years ago. You can see how we think, the way we think and we argue, we are based off of what someone said a long time ago. Think about evolution. Think about evolution. Evolution has changed in a way like never before over a century worth of people’s idea of what it means to exist. The value of human life. The point of existing at all. And it’s left a large swath of people with little to no purpose. All three of you here were just here. There isn’t anything beyond the grave if you think that. It’s because you’re weak and you need something to hang on to. And you just can’t accept the hard reality of evolution. Feminism is another way. It’s interesting if you study the inception of feminism. Feminism really started with prohibition. And prohibition had a lot of movement because you had women who were forming and gathering. Because, you know, hey, good cause. Women shouldn’t have to worry about getting their teeth knocked out when they get home by their drunk husband. So that’s good, right? We don’t like that. There are bad aspects of what alcohol does. But that gave way not to just women being safe, women being protected. That morphed into what is the modern day feminist movement by which feminism wants to throw off entirely any sort of definition of a woman being different, from a man. So ideas have consequences. And beyond even ideas that shape society, you and I have to go to the root and the core, past all of that, to the truth of the gospel. And the gospel tells us about who God is. And do we hold certain cornerstone truths to be unchangeable?
I think today in the church, there’s not a rock-solid commitment to certain biblical truths anymore. They are tentative positions. Tentative positions. One, you know, if it comes to mind, Audrey Saw, I don’t know if you’ve seen her in Playlist or you’ve seen her music. She has been, the last two days, a very popular Christian artist. And she doesn’t even sing like the frou-frou, superficial stuff on the radio. You know, she sings older hymns. She sings modern hymns. Very good voice. I loved her voice. I still love her voice. I love the music she sings. But a few years ago, you know, she just checked out and discovered that the only thing literally sacred is her body.
The body is sacred. And we’re all just part of this thing that’s happening. Where, where, where, where’s our rock-solid commitment to bedrock truths? So Jesus says beware. Jesus says beware. And I want to simplify the problem even more. I want to simplify it even more. It’s not there’s Jesus and there’s the gospel and there’s this great variety of false teachings out there. There are a great variety of false teachings out there. Really though, there’s just two strings. There’s two strings and there’s two fathers. What did Jesus tell the Pharisees in John chapter 8? He said, your father is the devil and he’s the father of lies. He was a liar. He was a murderer from the beginning. So see why then Jesus’ wilderness experience is so important. Jesus was doing in his wilderness experience what the first Adam and Eve didn’t do. Jesus didn’t fall for the lie. Jesus was faithful to the word of God when Satan came and challenged it with a lie. Jesus grasped the importance of not just having a cursory knowledge of truth but being committed to his core who God is. What I can’t compromise on.
So the business of false teachers and right doctrine is not for like these academic learned people. I’m going to sit around and discuss this for hours and use esoteric language where I’m going to watch this two, three hour lecture on theology. Hey, those are good things and I enjoy those things. But I think the kind of false teaching we’re talking about here is the kind of teaching that each of us should hold dear to our hearts. Because messing with our teaching is messing with our father and who he says he is in his character and in his promises. And if you take away the teachings I have about Jesus and about the father you’re taking away the father and you’re taking away Jesus.
Later on we learn in chapter three one of the main problems one of the false teachings was that the recipients of this letter were being told there is no bodily return of Christ. Jesus isn’t coming back. And then you could go I’m not really into eschatology I don’t want to talk about end times. It’s not my thing. I don’t want to talk about end times. It’s confusing to me. I don’t know. Hold on a second. Hold on. If Jesus doesn’t come back who’s going to make all things new? If Jesus doesn’t come back who’s going to make me new? If Jesus doesn’t come back how are heaven and earth going to become one and I’m going to live eternally in the presence of the father forever? How can that happen? So you start messing with theology and again you start manipulating and changing the very heart of God. So I want to say to each of us we each should have a vested interest in false teaching versus what is the true teaching because we each have a vested interest in knowing the heart and the mind of the father as displayed by Christ and recorded by the apostles in the New Testament and the prophets of the Old Testament.
False teaching is a bad description of who God is on paper.
And I want to get my pencil out and I want to go no no I’m not okay with that. You’re not going to mess it up for me. And you’re not going to mess it up for others. World War I and II I guess the first modern forms of psychological warfare was fly-by leaflets. You’ve probably seen that in you know movies you’ve got you know in a city and a plane flies over and releases thousands of these little papers and pamphlets and all these things. And they were used to encourage their own people sometimes but they were also dropped on enemy lines to discourage to say things that were untrue to manipulate truth that lead people confused about the state of the war to demoralize troops oftentimes. And I think it’s the same thing in this spiritual war we’re fighting the enemy will do whatever he can do to get into your head to get into your brother or sister’s head about who God actually is and draw us away in the heart of the gospel.
Love your Bible not because you want a cerebral exercise love your Bible because it’s the heart of God on paper.
Love statements of faith because they’re distilled truths from scripture helping you know who God is.
Doctrine it’s not static information on paper
it’s the very thing that reveals the love and truth of God to us. So you know Awanas approved workmen who are not ashamed I don’t know if you went to a church coming up that had Awanas but it’s like yeah you get older and then you look back and go like oh that was kind of tacky and cheesy but it actually was really good because we need to teach children as much as adults like man I need to be drilling God’s word into my heart and mind what did what did Paul tell Timothy Timothy watch the teaching for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. What a way you statement guard it that’s how you’re going to save yourself and your hearers.
My senior year high school Bible teacher passed away last week and his name is Danny Miller and he’s the plainest guy you ever met cracky pants you know short sleeve button up with the tie just the plainest guy you’d ever see but that dude had a passion for teaching the word of God he pastored a little I don’t know 30 member church out in Alabama pastored those same people for decades and then he taught Bible to a bunch of punk high schoolers that obviously didn’t pay near as much attention as they should have at the time and and you know I guess the older I get the more I value the I value I guess such a character who his life is given to just watching the teaching and trying to help a few of God’s people just help them get home what a what a what a high call that is just to help God’s people get home by keeping a watch on the teaching I remember I remember him kind of kind of he was sharing with you know students like Harry Potter Harry Potter was you know all the rage at the time in the movies and all that there’s a lot of real witchcraft worked into those movies a lot of the things that are used in that fictional story are real and you know I think that you kind of have this yeah it’s a funny joke whatever it’s just a story fast forward to 2024 what is extremely popular and increasingly so among that same generation witchcraft wizardry these things are are not novel things on the edge of society anymore
value in church dearly value dearly the word of God as it is unadulterated value dearly the teaching of God’s word and I will continue to bear it as a heavy load to know that I will give an account for how well or poorly I kept the teaching for you
second thing that Peter shows us here is not only that false prophets false teachers will always be around but also that they’re always going to be successful he says who will bring who will secretly bring in destructive heresies and even denying the master who bought them bringing upon themselves so destruction and many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed so false teachers are high tech false teachers are really good at being false teachers is what Peter is saying you’re not don’t think so high of yourself that you can go through life as a Christian and easily spawn it Peter is saying have humility because bad teachers aren’t bad at teaching and I think that’s really important bad teachers the content that will send you straight to hell generally are really really good at communicating this false teachers don’t show up hey I’m a false teacher and if you don’t pay really close attention to what I’m saying I’m gonna completely get you off track from what the gospel is actually about who Jesus really was so fair warning there’s no fair warnings the serpent’s appeal the serpent’s appeal to Eve was wise and crafty in how he did it he didn’t say God said this exactly but you know I think did God really say you can’t eat the trees well he didn’t no he didn’t say all of them he said that one see he heightened the contrast he had her consider just that one tree he was smart in how he talked and all of a sudden the truth goes from being subverted then to supplanted so that he again touched the truth through her mind through her senses so that is that is I think when you trace it back when you go up those two streams you trace it back and you see that anyone that’s doing it is just doing what their father did you’re appealing to as Peter says here the sensuality of the flesh you’re appealing to what people want to what people feel and it works on the masses
when feelings inform our facts we have no facts at all is that fair biblically when feelings inform our facts we have no facts at all we have no attachment to reality or to the God of reality and that’s what we call sin it’s a delusional view of God it’s a delusional view of life and self whereby our pleasures our preferences and our inner compass of right and wrong is beyond scrutiny that’s what that is it’s when your wants your desires your standard is beyond scrutiny who likes to be scrutinized nobody likes to be scrutinized that’s why we’ve been talking about heart work is what kind of work it’s hard work no one likes to be scrutinized yet what does the word of God exclusively do it scrutinizes the full out of you literally Hebrews 4.12 for the word of God is living and it’s active and it’s sharper than any two edged sword it penetrates divides soul and spirit joint and marrow that thing will expose you for what you are time and time and time again
you think about the simplest thing that you and I try to cover over like I know I get my six month text reminder from my dentist you need to come get your teeth cleaned you can get your teeth cleaned I wiped my teeth with a butter knife the other day on accident I don’t know how I did that I don’t know what I was doing but I think I could hurt it it’s like I think there’s like a like a hairline whatever on it now and I don’t know what it is but I feel like I’ll just put up with this see how long I can go like this why did I do that how come you avoid stepping on the scale after Thanksgiving you don’t want to put up with it you don’t want to be scrutinized in that if you and I are so bad at being scrutinized in the small silly things of life like needing to go get your teeth cleaned or watching the waves how much more are you and I giving in our sinful flesh to avoid the scrutiny of the word of God
what did Paul warn Timothy about he said the time is coming when people will accrue teachers who want what do they want they want to hear what their itching ears want to hear and they want to be scrutinized they want to be told what they want to be told
the first thing that we ought to do then to avoid sensual teaching of Paul’s teachers is not criticize them the first thing that we ought to do is criticize ourselves you know the word of God says that you if you spent more time criticizing yourself and your own sinfulness you would have less to be judged on by God the scripture says judge yourself so point the finger at your own flesh first of all and say I’m the one who’s susceptible to this stuff I’m the one who thinks I have some kind of innate ability to hear Paul’s teaching and remain immune to it who on judgment day when Jesus pronounces they have to spin a turning apartment and go oh Jesus
I’m sensual the false teaching has come to my sensuality their fault it’s not my fault it’s your fault it’s your fault for not guarding your own heart not building up that wall when the catapult starts shooting
I don’t like to criticize names unless I really feel it necessary but I think that even this text makes me feel like I should criticize actual names in the right spirit and I will tell you one thing that I think is highly aggravating in it’s work being pointed out there’s a lot of things that happen in CCM Contemporary Christian Music one of those names one name I’m going to say and it’s a recent story would be Amy Grant some of you listen to Amy Grant you like Amy Grant you know who Amy Grant is she’s married to Vince Gill
she decided to let her lesbian niece have a wedding on her farm and of course there was some uproar about well hold on she’s a really large face and really a long you know long term you know kind of a titan in the industry over the last several decades and here’s what she said and she’s asked about that
my family I love those drives I love those drives they’re wonderful our family is better and you should be able to be with who you’re with with your family and be loved by them I own a farm that I bought back in the 90s and they were just looking for a beautiful place to get married she tells people so she and Sam got married on the same hillside where Vince and I got married honestly from a faith perspective I do always say Jesus you just narrowed it down to two things love God love each other I mean hey that’s pretty simple
so so you you and I have to be wise so wise and so discernible if there was an era in modern evangelicalism we could turn on the radio and just walk into the Christian bookstore and just grab a book off the shelf and that was definitely going to be a good book for you to read those days are gone like those days are long gone and I will say it reminds me of something that Bodie Bauckham says and I really latched onto it because it’s just really helpful we’re told we all need to obey commandment 11 be nice and then we need to obey commandment 12 forget commandments 1 through 10 and I think that is a mechanism used so that we don’t say anything that you know rocks the bow or causes any controversy there’s no room to be ugly or rude and certainly there has to be room for you not within the walls of the church for crying out loud nor else to say hey that’s a false God right there like don’t follow them without going I need to pick on everybody like we have to be able to say that person’s going to need you to hell if you follow their example and if that’s hateful and if that’s cross and that’s rude we have no ability to be able to protect one another’s souls I will say another name I will say Stephen Furtick I will say that it is insane to me insane to me that thousands of churches who are probably orthodox for the most part use his church’s music weekly with absolutely no reserve absolutely no reserve Stephen Furtick has said on stage
when he was when God was speaking to Moses he said I am so that Moses you would know you are he turned the I am statement of God into self empowerment
it’s little God’s theology we’re all little God’s
and and they left the SBC last year because they Father Flourish they did I’m sorry
no no no of to say not mean things, but hard things and true things. We have to. We have to say, hey, that kills. Hey, that deceives. Hey, that destroys. And Peter said most people are going to be deceived through their sensual desires. Like, it says that, which means what it’s going to be, and it’s this remnant motif throughout the whole of the Old New Testament, it’s only a small remnant. It’s only a few people that will be saved. So, I urge you as much as I urge myself, and beg you to urge me sometimes. Be discerning. Be guarded. Don’t follow your heart. Your heart’s wicked and dirty and nasty. It’ll send you to hell. It’ll choose sin every time. Every time.
So, love yourself by discerning truth from error. Love yourself by doing the hard work of defense. The hard work of defense. Guard your heart from false teaching. Let your truth form your feelings, not the reverse.
And most of all here, I just want to do reading. Psalm chapter 119.
Verse 33.
I think this is the heart posture here that stays agile against false teaching. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will keep it to the end.
Isn’t that simple? Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will keep it to the end. What a good word. Give me understanding that I’m going to keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of God. Lead me in the path of your commandments for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain. Those are such important pointed words. Incline my heart. Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain. So, friends, watch out. False teachers, false teaching are everywhere. They’re always around and they’re always successful. Let us do the hard work of defending what’s been entrusted to us in the gospel of Jesus.