The Rise and Fall of False Teachers

If you have a Bible with you, open up with me to 2 Peter 2 and we will be looking at the first 10 verses. Now you may not remember this but back in November, I told you that we would be working through the book of 2nd Peter together whenever Wayne would let me preach and 6 months ago we finished 2 Peter 1 and now we have arrived to 2 Peter 2. I’m going to be overly optimistic and assume that you remember everything that I said at the end of chapter 1 and even if you don’t remember it, trust me you loved it! Or so I will tell you. You all probably know that I love the great reformer, theologian, pastor, expositor John Calvin and Calvin devoted his life to verse by verse preaching and one of my favorite stories of Calvin’s love for the Word was that on Easter Sunday 1538, the city of Geneva where he served as pastor forced him out of the pulpit and ran him out of town. 3 years later in 1541, Geneva realized the huge mistake that they had made by kicking Calvin out and asked him to return and he did in September of that year. That first Sunday back in the pulpit, where else would Calvin start to preach but in the very next verse from the book that he was preaching from in 1538 as if no time had passed. So, 6 months between chapters 1 and 2 is manageable. To recap what Peter is writing about in this second letter, Peter is expecting his life to end soon and he wants to leave his readers a reminder so that they can stand firm in the truth of the Gospel at any point after his departure. In the first chapter, Peter writes very positively. The second chapter, while highly practical and needed, does not carry the same positive tone as the first chapter. The second chapter as we will see serves as a warning. Chapter 2 almost acts as guard rails to see to it that the faithful continue to pursue faithful teaching. Chapter 2 points to the danger, the presence, the judgement and methods of false teachers. In the first 10 verses, we will focus on the presence and judgement of false teachers and then whenever we finish the rest of the chapter, we will look more at their methods. We’ll look at 3 things this morning: 1. The Presence of False Teachers. 2. The Judgement of False Teachers. 3. The Rescue of the Righteous. Let’s pray and then we will read 2 Peter 2:1-10

2 Peter 2:1–10 NASB95

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties,

The Presence of False Teachers

In the first 3 verses, Peter warns his readers of the presence of false teachers that will make their way into the church and he warns them about what their intentions are. These verses serve as a total contrast with what Peter had said back in 2 Peter 1:20–21 when he said, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” Here we see Peter saying that no man has ever produced his own prophecy and no Scripture has ever been penned solely by just a human author. Instead, God who is truth, inspired the prophets and the other authors of Scripture to record for us the words that God wanted us to know. Peter points backwards to the times of the prophets and to the time of the Old Testament writings and then in verse 1, we saw Peter say that false prophets rose up during their time as well. These were those that in the days of Jeremiah and Isaiah would prophecy peace when there was no peace. They would prophecy prosperity and love when exile and wrath were to come. I highly encourage you to read what the Lord says in Jeremiah 23. Time does not permit us to spend much time there but I want to draw your attention to what the Lord says of the false prophets that arose in Israel and Jerusalem in the time of Jeremiah. The Lord says that these ramblings of these unsent prophets have not just hit the streets of Jerusalem but their wickedness has been found in the very house of God. Then in Jeremiah 23:16-17, the Lord says to the people, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets that are prophesying to you because they are leading you into futility! They are speaking their own imaginations and not my words. They say that no calamity will befall you because of your sin.” In Jeremiah 23:21, the Lord says, “I did not send these prophets, But they ran. I did not speak to them, But they prophesied.” God did not send them, they had no word from Him, they spoke no truth. Then in Jeremiah 23:22 the Lord says that if they had been in His presence, they would have spoken His truth: “But if they had stood in My council, Then they would have announced My words to My people, And would have turned them back from their evil way And from the evil of their deeds.” Now look for a moment at Jeremiah 23:25-32 and listen to what the Lord says of these teachers:

Jeremiah 23:25–32 NASB95

“I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in My name, saying, ‘I had a dream, I had a dream!’ “How long? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart, who intend to make My people forget My name by their dreams which they relate to one another, just as their fathers forgot My name because of Baal? “The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has My word speak My word in truth. What does straw have in common with grain?” declares the Lord. “Is not My word like fire?” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer which shatters a rock? “Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,” declares the Lord, “who steal My words from each other. “Behold, I am against the prophets,” declares the Lord, “who use their tongues and declare, ‘The Lord declares.’ “Behold, I am against those who have prophesied false dreams,” declares the Lord, “and related them and led My people astray by their falsehoods and reckless boasting; yet I did not send them or command them, nor do they furnish this people the slightest benefit,” declares the Lord.

“Nor do they furnish this people the slightest benefit.” There is nothing in the words of these false prophets that produced any benefit to anyone. Peter says it is teachers like this that you and I need to be aware of. Just as there were false prophets that rose up in the time of Moses, David, Isaiah, and all the Old Testament, so there will also be false teachers among us. The first thing that I want you to notice is how these false teachers come in. Notice that Peter says that these are not the people shouting falsehood from the streets but they walk among us in the church. He says there will be false teachers among you so that means that the church of Christ needs to be aware of that which is inside their walls. The next thing is that these people will “secretly introduce” destructive heresies to the people of God. This means that it is highly unlikely that someone is going to walk in on day one and say, “Bow down to Satan to get to Heaven.” No, instead what will happen is that it will start with a comment, it’ll start with a thought, it may not even be a fully fleshed out teaching. As Adrian Rogers would say, they’ll use our words but use their own dictionary to define them. The teachings of Satan are not always covered with pitchforks and horns but come disguised as an angel of light. It may start with something like, “Jesus loves the world so that must mean that the entire world will be saved.” This means that you can live how you want, reject Christ if you want, it does not matter because eventually we will all just be saved anyway. Do you see the danger in that? It sounds good. Yes, we know of the love of Jesus, we know the love He has for the world, we know that there will be a great multitude that cannot be numbered in Heaven, but this is a destructive heresy disguised as truth that will bring swift destruction upon those that teach these falsehoods and lead others astray. Peter says that these teachers will deny the Master who bought them and I want to stop right there and say that this has nothing to do with the atonement. Instead Peter is using an analogy that is simply saying that these men, despite their destructive heresies, are still under the sovereign authority of God. As these destructive heresies are introduced, Peter warns that many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be maligned. These teachings are an attack on the truth of God’s Word. It is an attack on the trustworthiness of Scripture and it is a deliberate leading away from true, Biblical Christianity. We will know what is true in the teachings of those around us because it will not malign the truths found in Scripture but will instead exalt the truths in Scripture. I encourage you to read Jonathan Edwards’s book, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. As the Great Awakening was taking off, many though that it was not a work of God but Edwards expertly, through Scripture, shows many of the distinguishing marks to tell whether something is really from the Lord or not. In it Edwards writes, “If by observing the manner of the operation of a spirit that is at work among a people, we see that it operates as a spirit of truth, leading persons to truth, convincing them of those things that are true, we may safely determine that it is a right and true spirit.” Here’s the thing, if we are going to claim to be Christian, we need to know what is distinctly Christian. We need to know the truth. I think that one of the major issues with the church of today is that we have lost sight of what is really true. We have lost the desire to call false teachers what they really are. We have let the fire of orthodoxy burn to a spark of what true Christianity is. We have rejected doctrine in favor of application. We have ignored blatant heresy and allowed it to run rampant because we don’t want to offend or it may have the appearance of helping someone out. We as the church have lost the desire and ability to call an ace an ace and a spade a spade. While Satan will do all that he can to see that wolves in sheep’s clothing will enter the pen, we have lost the desire to find the wolves and protect the sheep. I would argue that the greatest need for the 21st century church is not a weeding out of false teachers but a bringing forth of Biblical teachers. Give us men and women that know the truth! And aren’t afraid to shout it from the mountain tops! If the truth offends, let it offend! It breaks my heart when I walk into a bookstore and see the garbage that is being peddled as Christian books. It breaks my heart when I hear Christians speak of blatant false teachers with such thankfulness and high regard. No, we need to call these false teachers out! The prosperity Gospel is a tool of the devil and those that push for it are false teachers. Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Steven Furtick, Bill Johnson, Kenneth Copeland, these are false teachers plain as day or they are greatly deceived. Christians, you need to be careful what you take in. You need to check teaching with Scripture. I remember a while back, I was having dinner with someone that is a worship leader and we got talking about the state of worship music today and I told him that I refuse to play music by “Christian” artists like Bethel and Elevation because I believe that these churches are being led by false teachers. He said something along the lines of, “Well, even if that is so, the songs are leading people in worship so we can look past some doctrinal things.” You and I need to understand that not only does God care who we worship, He cares how we worship. We are to worship in Spirit AND in truth. So, I refuse to play music and support ministries that know how to make a Christian sounding song but are knowingly teaching falsehoods to the people. You need to remember that not all that claims to be Christian is truly Christian. You need to be able to discern what is true because the path of these false teachers leads to nothing but judgement and it is a judgement that is sure and swiftly approaching. We see this in verse 3 and then in verses 4-8 in 3 examples that Peter provides.

The Judgement of False Teachers

These false teachers have not slipped through God’s fingers. Peter says that their judgement comes from long ago and is not idle. Look again at 2 Peter 2:4-8

2 Peter 2:4–8 NASB95

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

To run through these three quickly, verse 4 speaks on how the Lord did not spare the angels that rebelled against Him but sent Satan and these fallen angels to Hell. You may know that before the fall of man, there was the fall of Satan. Prior to Genesis 3, Satan rebelled against the Lord and a number of angels followed him but they did not remove God from His throne. Jude 6 says, “And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” The next reference that Peter makes is to the world during the time of Noah. This was a time when wickedness and falsehood was running rampant. The state of the world was so bad that we read in Genesis 6:5 “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” We know that it was during the time of Noah where the Lord sent a flood that destroyed the entire world but did wickedness or falsehood win the day? No. Because by God’s grace, Noah and seven others were saved. Peter wants us to know that Noah was a righteous man. Not only was he a righteous man, he was a preacher of righteousness. Noah preached the truth. He wasn’t caught up with the winds of wickedness. Finally Peter references the rescue of Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. Out of the entire population of those cities, Lot and his daughters were the only ones that had escaped but they did not escape on their own. The Lord rescued them as He had rescued Noah. Righteous Lot’s heart was for the people of Sodom but not for the sins of the people of Sodom. What is it that Peter wants his readers to recognize here? It is that you cannot escape the judgement of God. Sin will not go unpunished. Those that make a practice of deceiving the sheep will not go about unnoticed and they are not off the hook for what they have done. Those that have introduced destructive heresies to the people of God and have indulged the flesh and despised authority will be judged and destroyed by the Master who bought them. God’s judgement is sure and let me say this too: there are many of us in here who are in a teaching position that need to work on our ability to discern. Some of you preach occasionally, some of you lead a Sunday school class, some of you may lead a small group or home group, and many of you are parents that may have in the past or are currently teaching your children. What is it that you are teaching? And what is it that you and I are taking in? You and I need to make sure that we are teaching the truth. James 3:1 says, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.” I know that the day will come when every word that I have uttered from this pulpit will be laid bare before the Lord and I want to make sure that what I say is true. You and I are not permitted to run free and loose with the Bible. Sometimes we will teach false things out of ignorance but I pray to God that not one of us would be found guilty of deliberately teaching falsehoods and leading people away from the truth. We all need, not just those that are in a teaching position, to check what we are reading, to check what we are listening to, to hold the preaching and teaching we hear to a much higher standard. What this may mean for you is that there are some books that you gotta chuck, there’s some youtube channels you need to stop going to, there’s a podcast you need to move away from. We don’t just need to bring truth in, we need to speak truth out because we know that judgement is sure for every false teacher. Yet Peter does not leave us without hope. Look again at what he says in 2 Peter 2:9 “then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.”

The Rescue of the Righteous

Do you see what Peter is saying here? He is saying, “If God can save Noah and his family in a world of sin and falsehood, if God can save Lot out of this wretched hive of scum and villainy which is Sodom, we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord knows to rescue the godly.” Do you see what this means for you? Do you see what this means for the Church? In a world that seems to be rapidly approaching levels of wickedness not seen since the time of Noah, not seen since the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, God sees those that have been made new in Jesus Christ and He knows how to rescue them. While temptation and stumbling points are all around, God alone can rescue. Do you remember what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:13? “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” Yes we are surrounded by false teaching and false teachers but shining in the darkness is the light of the world and that light is the light of truth. That truth which we hold to and which we proclaim will never be destroyed. We hold to that which is eternal and we are held by Him that will never give up the throne. John Calvin wrote, “It is enough to remember that we must fight against unholy doctrines, and that our faith ought not to be shaken by divisions and heresies, because the truth of God will firmly prevail over all the turbulent upsets by which Satan has so often tried to overthrow everything.” As we close, I want to leave us with this encouragement for both believers and unbelievers because I do believe that both groups are represented now in this room. The odds that every single person here right now is a Christian is near impossible. But let me encourage the believers first. You see this world that you are in and you see the hate that the world has for truth and for the Lord. I do not need to spend much time preaching to you about the fallen nature of the world. Stand firm. Live confidently in the knowledge that just as the Lord rescued you from the sin that separated you from Him in the first place, He will also rescue you from the judgement that is to come. He will rescue you from the pains of this world and the time will come when all that is sad will be made untrue. The time will come when falsehood will fall and you will know in full because you will see the Lord as He is. Knowing that this is coming, knowing that this rescue is sure, doesn’t it make sense to live boldly for the truth? Doesn’t it make sense to call out false doctrine and teaching with the full confidence that even if man is to kill the body, Christ Jesus has already rescued your soul? If Christ has rescued us eternally, should we not live for Him now more boldly? If Christ has saved us for eternity, who cares what happens to us in the temporary? Should we not strive to preach the true and living Word of God? Should we not strive to make sure that what we say and do is lined up with Scripture and truth? Might I lovingly challenge you to double check the content that you are bringing into your life and into your heart. Truth starts with the Lord but it is His church that is to carry this truth out into the world. Finally to the unbeliever in this room, I want you to know that if you continue to deny Christ, if you continue to choose your own sin and your own ways over obedience to and faith in Christ, then God’s judgement will remain on you. You need Christ now and you need more than to just know who Christ is. False teachers know Jesus, Satan knows Jesus, the demons know Jesus. Knowing Jesus is one thing, being born again through Jesus Christ is another. If you are not born again, if you have not placed your faith in Christ, then know that your judgement is not idle and your destruction is not asleep. If God did not spare the angels, if God did not spare the world, if God did not spare Sodom and Gomorrah, what hope do you have that He will spare you. Jesus Christ will be glorified in your salvation and He will be glorified in your damnation. God is able at this very moment to cast you to hell but dear sinner, He is also able to rescue you. Jesus Christ has come to seek and save the lost. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Noah and Lot weren’t perfect. They were sinners saved by grace through faith. Come to the Lord for rescue now, no one who has ever sought Him has ever been cast out. Come while there is time to the one that is able to rescue the godly from temptation and is willing and able to seek and save the lost. You all have been given an assignment this morning: You have been given the task to discern and declare the truth or you have been given the task to embrace the truth. Which is it that you will do this morning? It’s all before you now, come and take it. Let’s pray.